Moonless Night
by J Plash
Summary: New Moon from Edward's perspective. Sometimes it's not enough to want. Sometimes it's not enough to need. Sometimes it's just not that simple. Sometimes goodbye's the only way. Fully canon, full length and in character retelling of NM in Epov. In progress
1. Preface

Preface

The time had come. Very soon, the bell would toll midday from above. The sun would beat down from overhead, would flood this square at the heart of their secrets with daylight. As warmth flooded over the crowd, I would step into the sun, and throw my unnatural, accursed rainbows one last time.

And here, at the end, I wasn't afraid. If I was wrong, and Carlisle was somehow right, then this was the gateway to a glorious renewal – the beginning of the only heaven I needed, by Bella's side for all the rest of blessed eternal life. If we met halfway, and I was headed for hell, then it held no more horror for me – nothing could be worse than what I had lost here in my half-living. Nothing could be worse than losing Bella. And if, as was more likely than either, I was right, then this was it. The pain was over now. My life was over. I had nothing left to live for. I had nothing to be ashamed of leaving. My family would say otherwise, no doubt, but they would understand with time.

In Bella I had found my purpose, and now my purpose was gone. I was ready to die, or to do whatever it is that we do at the end. I was ready to disappear.

I was ready to step into the sun one last time.

* * *

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A/N: So, this is the start of what I've been promising you all for several months - Edward's version of New Moon. This is the preface (ie. equivalent to Stephanie's preface to New Moon, in which Bella runs through the square toward Edward). Chapter 1, which is equivalent to about a quarter of NM's chapter 1 because Edward overthinks things so much (;D), is already up, and I hope you enjoy it! EDIT: For those people coming in now, this fic updates every Thursday :D

Please review (once you've read ch.1, not just the preface ;D) and tell me what you think, what sounds right, what I've got horribly wrong. If I'm going to finish a whole book in Edward's point of view, I need you to keep me in line ;-)

Thanks for reading, and hope you have fun!

J (and Edward _-broods endearingly-_)


	2. Chapter 1: Undertaken Rationally

Chapter 1: Undertaken Rationally

"Edward…" she murmured, barely coherent, through sleeping lips, and she sounded oddly alarmed, almost distressed. I rubbed the bridge of my nose between two fingers and resisted the desire to wake her. She had risen from the hours of deep sleep, back to the stage of lighter rest in which her lips would utter mysteries and her body would twitch and roll and stretch and captivate me. Soon, I knew, she would wake.

"Mma gran, Edward…"

Still alarmed. Still distressed. I couldn't decipher the other words. I hesitated, undecided, about to stand. She was asleep. She was impossible to read at the best of times and now, eyes closed, face half-obscured, voice muted, was not the best by any means. I had no way to know whether she was truly distressed. She needed her sleep, and she didn't need to wake to my touch or my voice or my face, not today. She didn't speak again, but her brow appeared to crease almost undetectably. I forced myself not to move toward her. I had not expected peace and joy today. I should have anticipated unhappy dreams this morning. She shifted again, rolling almost onto her stomach. I wondered briefly, nervous in a way that I had never known before Bella, whether she was capable of suffocating in her own cushions the way that small children did. Medical school taught one many things to fear. She rolled again, completely face down. Her breathing rolled on, slow and deep and peaceful. Sleeping. I sighed, wishing I could see her face, but unwilling to risk waking her. I bent just low enough to brush my lips weightlessly against her hair. She didn't respond. I smiled as she shifted ineffectually. "Happy Birthday, love," I whispered as I straightened. "I'll see you soon."

I looked back as I reached the window. Her breathing remained steady, her hands twitching irregularly against the mattress in her dream, her face tense. "I love you, my Bella," I murmured, as much for my own comfort as for hers. I paused as her whole body stiffened. Waking her wasn't going to help. "Happy birthday," I murmured again, just loud enough to reach her sleeping ears. And then I slid the window silently to the top of its frame, closed it as I slipped out, and crossed the yard to the forest too quickly for the human eye to catch.

Though it tore me apart to leave her, I knew two things: firstly, that on the morning of her birthday, Charlie was liable to burst into Bella's bedroom at any moment, necessitating my immediate removal and, secondly, that this morning, only this morning, Bella would prefer to wake up without me. The thought made me feel oddly hollow as the forest flew past and my feet raced through the trees independent of my mind. She was not happy, and there was nothing I could do to change it. My presence would only make matters worse.

I knew the way from Bella's home to my family's without thinking – I had tracked it too many times in the last six months for even me to count. My body ran on autopilot. Perhaps, without me there, she could put her worries aside and enjoy her birthday a little. Perhaps, if I gave her half an hour to get used to the day, she would find it easier to bear. Perhaps, left to his own devices, Charlie might force her to celebrate a little. I sighed as I slipped noiselessly through the door of the white house. All of this was wishful thinking. Though she didn't say it, I knew that Bella didn't want me at her side this morning. But she had been dreading today for weeks, and half an hour without me wasn't going to be enough to make things better. I had managed to turn her birthday into a day of mourning, and there was nothing that I could do about it.

"Finally, Edward!" Alice exploded into me as I moved to the stairs.

I raised an eyebrow and continued up. "You knew when to expect me."

"How is she?"

"Asleep." I entered my own room and shut the door before Alice could follow.

She opened it. "You're not the only one concerned about her, Edward."

"No, but I am the only one causing her to dread her own birthday. Was there anything else?"

She stared me down. She was genuinely trying not to think what I already knew she did – _just do it. Nothing would have to be like this, both of you would be so happy, I'd have Bella as a sister…if you would just do it._

She had the compassion and the courtesy not to consciously think it at me anymore, but her unconscious reactions to my misery still slipped through. I ignored them.

I felt more than heard the change in tenor of her thoughts as she stepped into the room—she had caught herself and was trying to mask the flow of her mind. "Don't you want to hear where the party's at?" I could hear her intentions as clearly in her soothing, falsely light voice as I could in her mind now that she spoke. _He's miserable. Don't push him today. He needs cheering up as much as Bella does. He was enthusiastic about the party…_

Her thoughts suddenly switched tack, and I knew she was leaving for the driveway before she spoke. "Wait one second Edward, I'll be right back…" and she was out of the room, down the stairs and off to pick up some supply or other for the evening's festivities from where it was about to pass in a truck that would miss the turn in to our retreat.

I sighed. Alice was placing great stock in her planned celebration and its supposed power to fix Bella's mood. I was not. Nonetheless, I felt that Bella should have a party, and I wanted Alice to be happy. Bella had grown marginally more receptive to the kind of fuss that Alice favoured, and while I expected a negative response to start with, it was possible that Bella might relax once she was here...if only because Jasper would undoubtedly intervene. Carlisle had agreed that it was a good idea. It couldn't be worse than sitting at home with me, regardless. I doubted the party would make her happy about today, but it might at least distract her briefly from the reasons behind her humour.

I traced a fingertip in rings around the CD that was my only gift to my angel. It was heartfelt, if nothing else. I knew that she would love it, and that brought a smile to my face. The way that her eyes misted over when I played, how her body would relax and tense with the rise and fall of the music, how, when she sat next to me before the keyboard, her head would rest on my shoulder and her eyes would follow the progress of my hands across the keys…I felt the tension leaving my body. She would sigh quietly with each familiar note, and the sweet scent of her breath and her body would surround me. Her eyelids would flutter shut like snowdrops, her lips would part minutely, her breathing would match mine. And if I kept playing, her warm, gentle hands would trace along my forearm, too light to disturb the music, or rest tentatively on my thigh by hers. Her touch was heaven at the worst of times—it was unimaginable bliss when she leaned against me that way, lost in the music that had filled me only for her.

The CD reflected a few beams of stray light against the walls, nothing against the wild refraction of my lifeless skin when the sun shone. I would have loved to buy her more gifts—anything. I could imagine nothing that she did not deserve, nothing that I would not find for her if only she would accept it. But even something so simple, so practical, so _small_ as better speakers for the CD would be too much for Bella if they came from me. Anything close to what she deserved would make her furious. I smiled wryly to myself—the Centenary Diamond was out of the question. Or perhaps the Heart of Eternity, I reflected absently. She did glow so beautifully in blue. If I could obtain the Millennium Star as well, the pair would be perfect. A piece of modern history. My mind trailed distantly through the possibilities. The Star of the Season would be difficult to purchase…

"_Edward?"_

My name caught my attention from downstairs, called in Alice's mind.

"Alice?"

"_Why do I see you trying to charm Ahmed Fitaihi into selling you his diamonds?"_

I couldn't help but laugh. "Bella would kill me."

"_Yes,"_ Alice agreed conversationally. _"Now are you going to come down here and look at my plans or are you going to sit up there and think of untenable gift ideas all morning?"_

If nothing else, the thought of decking Bella in the world's most perfect gems had somewhat lifted my mood. I rolled off the couch and tried not to think about what Bella would say when I told her that there was a party.

It was hard to focus on anything without Bella here. My mind filled with her face—with her smile—with the changing, rising, falling, irresistible music of her voice, the velvet drowning of her eyes. Every situation in memory or speculation, inconstant daydreams or imagination featured Bella by my side. Bella in the loose flannel shirt that she liked to wear, comfortable and free, sprawled on the grass in our meadow. Bella in her prom dress, plus or minus the Tereschenko blue diamond, both legs uninjured and looking shockingly attractive in those silk-tied heels. For next year's prom, if I could convince her to go, we would have to do even better. The Graff Company's Paragon necklace would suit her, I noted wistfully as I obeyed Alice's summons. The Paragon diamond was lovely. I wondered whether Bella had ever seen a two-hundred carat. She liked rainbows. Her eyes still glazed over when she watched me in the sun. Perhaps she would like diamonds if I could show her one. I dismissed the idea quickly. I couldn't imagine how I'd convince her to come with me to the Smithsonian collection in Washington DC, let alone to permit me to bring a diamond here.

"Are you even listening to me, Edward?"

Was I really listening? No. Was enough of my mind trained on her words that I could pretend I had been? I smiled noncommittally as I actually looked at Alice. "You just took delivery of three-hundred pink roses. They're going in the bowls we used for Rosalie's '95 wedding. You need to find where you put the white Japanese lanterns because they're not with the rest of the lighting." I deliberated for a moment. "I believe they're downstairs behind the teak cabinet in the far south-east corner. With Rosalie's old incense chest."

Alice's eyes lit up. "Of course!" She was already half way to the basement when she called out, "You have to make me actually pack everything up properly tonight! I hate not being able to find anything…" And she was at the basement door when she stopped, stood still a moment then bolted up the stairs. Images of Bella flashed through her mind. The expression on Bella's face made me frown.

"We need to go, Edward!" I stared blankly, Bella's down-turned lips and tense face still before my eyes. She exhaled loudly, more impatient than usual. "Bella's leaving for school now, Edward, and I want to be there to say happy birthday when she arrives."

For a long moment, I considered telling Alice 'no'. The face in Alice's vision made it clear that Bella was hating her birthday every bit as much as she had promised that she would. Arriving at school to us—to me—was only going to remind her why she was so miserable. Alice's party was probably going to make Bella angry. But the alternative was waiting until class to see her, and that would be a first in…well, certainly a first for the year. Likely, Bella would worry if she were unable to locate me before classes began. Another source of worry was the last thing that my Bella needed. I retrieved lecture supplies from the cabinet near the door as Alice fixed me with a raised eyebrow and a flat glare. We didn't speak as we crossed to my Volvo, and the silence held for the first half of the two-minute transit.

"You'd better wipe that scowl off your face before you see her."

I turned my head further toward the window. "No, Alice, I'm going to glare, snarl and rip her head off." I could hear her eyes roll in her mind. I didn't look. "Of course I'll look happy when I see Bella."

"You don't look happy now."

"I'm not."

"Tonight's going to be great."

I forced my voice to remain level. "You saw your vision as well as I did, Alice. She's miserable."

I could hear Alice fighting not to think what she was thinking.

_Well, if you…no, damnit, Alice…um, 1234…gah…the last thing he needs is you reminding him that he's making her miserable…uh…_

Alice turned to thinking through old Ainu hymns that she must have learned from someone alive at the time, for they certainly weren't in print. I didn't fight my fists clenching around the wheel.

"She'll enjoy the party. I promise." Alice's voice sounded weak, and I could hear the thoughts crawling hopefully through her mind—_okay, so the bits I've seen have been more awkward than happy, but she looks happier than this morning, so that might as well be enjoying herself, really, or, well, it's good enough for Edward…_

I didn't object.

When the Volvo slid smoothly into a park, I slammed the door behind me almost before I'd stopped the car moving. I relished the momentary pause as Alice's thoughts were distracted by my hasty exit, quieted minimally by the minute increase in distance between us. As she stepped into the air after me, I searched Alice's thought-stream for where she was planning to stand. I needed to keep her unintentional commentary out of my head. I needed to be as far from her as practicable, even if the situation could only afford me a few metres. I was already torn between staying and tearing for the forest before Bella could see me and become more miserable still. Alice's poorly hidden reminders that the whole thing was entirely my fault were not boosting my argument to stay, and nor were the lingering images of Bella's face in her vision. The ridiculous technicality that she was 'older' than me—despite the fact that I was 86 years older than her, and she had never once pushed me away for it—had made her not only miserable but, from what I could tell by the vision of her face, actually distressed, nervous. But none of that was what made me want to disappear. Beneath it all was a horrible, gaping despair, an utter helplessness and fear deep in her eyes, eyes that I knew could be so warm and so rich, so intelligent and so loving, so sharp and so sweet and so perfect beyond belief…and they were empty and terrified and full of pain entirely because of me. The emptiness swelled, pressing on my lungs like physical pressure no longer could, rising from where it had tugged at me in the woods from her home and telling me to run before I made matters any worse. Seeing me—seeing the damned sameness of my lifeless face grinning at her like an idiot from the car park—was not going to help Bella. And yet, here I was. Leaning against the side of my car like I belonged here. Listening despite myself for the roar of her truck, audibly distinguishable from just under a mile away, as though I had a right to wait for her. Blocking out Alice's thoughts as though I shouldn't be the one suffering.

Furious with myself, I struggled to push the emptiness aside. Given that I was, in fact, standing here and waiting for Bella, I needed at least to minimise the damage. If that was still possible. 'Minimising the damage would have been staying in Alaska eight months ago,' something snapped in my head. 'Minimising the damage would have been leaving as soon as Bella was released from the hospital in Phoenix. Minimising the damage would have been thanking her for the time she'd given you, apologising for the mess you'd caused and getting out of her life.' I felt the familiar tightness in my chest as I silenced that part of my mind. The tightness was familiar—it seized me every time I allowed myself to suggest that I should have left her. It seized me every time that the thought of life without her glanced through my mind like a lifetime of darkness and an explosion of pain. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to focus. Plan. Plan of action. What are you going to do when Bella's truck pulls in? I focused. I waited. Blank. The complete lack of ideas made me slightly dizzy—I always had ideas. I racked my brain for the kind of pathetic, unlikely to work suggestions that I would normally filter out automatically. And landed up right where I'd started. Try to distract her. Make light of the situation. Pretend it's not a big deal. Don't let her be stressed. Smile. Hold her. Hell, 'dazzle' her, if it would work. Don't mention the party. Don't give her any more reasons to be upset, but don't make her bring up the old ones. Don't let her suffer in silence all day. Be honest about her misery, laugh about it, try to boost her spirits. For a moment, the combination was slightly dizzying. By the time I heard the truck in the distance twenty-three seconds later, I had planned exactly what I would do and say. She would be here in a minute and a half, give or take the crawling pace of her truck. And I would be standing right here, in plain sight, smiling as though nothing were wrong.

I began to draw in deep breaths of the crisp fall air, still relatively mild but swiftly gaining an edge of the chill to come. I held the air in my lungs as I drew forth every memory I could reach of my Bella's scent, sharp, vivid, burning in my throat. Every morning I called upon the same arsenal of memory, and every morning it fell wildly short. It was something, though. I swallowed the venom without flinching, and forced the tension out of my muscles, acclimatising as best I could to the fire in my stony flesh, knowing that it would be a thousand times worse when she arrived. I had the odd thought that had my venom the impulse of tears, they would no doubt distract me from the pain I felt now – venom in the eyes could not be easy, and this burning would easily draw tears. I tried to make it an argument for being glad I couldn't cry. I wasn't surprised when it failed. I took another set of deep breaths. Thirty seconds. The final dregs of tension slipped roughly from my body as I made myself focus on my Bella's face. On her eyes. On the sweet, smooth, delicious slide of her lips against mine. This was bearable. This had to be bearable. This would be bearable. For my Bella, anything was bearable.

The familiar, ridiculous red truck came into view, about to turn in to the car park. And suddenly, bearable was an understatement. I knew that the worst was yet to come—the flare of pain when she stepped to the pavement on days that she drove without me was impossible to match in memory. But right now, I could see her face through the windscreen. I could see her soft, gentle, loving hands gripping the steering wheel too tightly. I could see the line of her slender, pale arms rising from the pulse at her wrists to the pulse at her neck. I could see the curve of her neck crossing the ridge of her collarbone and turning into the curve of her breast. I could see the rise and fall of her body with each breath. I could see every inch of her and everything I knew that could not be seen deep in the distance of her eyes. She had not yet spotted me. But it did not matter. She was the most beautiful thing in the world. Pain was not even part of the equation.

I held my breath as her eyes scanned the car park and the truck crawled inexorably toward us. I held my breath as her eyes flicked back over the Volvo. I held my breath as her eyes were about to catch me. And then, like the beginnings of the world and the light of heaven, she smiled, and everything else disappeared. Her eyes were full of an intoxicating mix of joy and wonder, and I knew that mine were the same. Even after two-hundred-and-thirty-eight days of seeing Bella, everything about her still blew me away. And even after one-hundred-and-eighty-eight days of being with my angel, I still couldn't believe that I could possess this magnificent a blessing. No memory I had could do her justice. And she was smiling just for me, because of me, just the same as every blessed morning. I felt my grin widen and become genuine. Bella pulled the truck up across the aisle from my Volvo. I was silently grateful. If I waited here for her to reach me, I would have ten metres—almost thirty seconds, including the time it would take her to exit and lock the truck—to deal with her scent in the open air before I touched her. A little time made it easier to erase the evidence from my stance before she could notice. I breathed in deeply, drawing in the echo that I could scent already, with the body of the truck enclosing her. Bella knew, naturally, that I had to reacclimatise to her scent every time that I left her. She wasn't, however, always conscious of the knowledge, and I worked to keep it so. Bad enough that she was involved with a monster. She didn't need the pain of knowing how strongly my body urged me to take what it wanted every time I greeted her.

Because that would never happen. Not now.

I held my breath as the door opened, lingering in that moment of the whole world shutting down—one long moment of everything reduced to Bella's face as she stepped into the same air as I. And then I forced myself to breathe in, and the whole world came rushing back. I felt myself sway internally, though my body kept its perfect balance. I clenched my jaw like every morning as venom flooded my mouth; tensed the muscles in my neck as I swallowed it harshly down; relaxed each muscle in my body, one at a time, by force of will, ordering them to forget the instinct to pounce. And I was profoundly glad, for once, that I could not cry, because my eyes stayed focused on Bella, and as long as it was for Bella, there was no pain I could not dismiss. She was frowning—the smile had disappeared in moments—but she was there. She was there, and if I had hurt her today, it was up to me to fix it. She was here, and it was my job, my purpose, to protect her. The larger part of my mind did not register Alice leaving my side until she crossed my view of Bella.

"Happy birthday, Bella!"

I was ready to kill her.

"Shh!" Bella hissed, blushing furiously and glancing nervously around the car park as though something might jump at her. Hardly unreasonable, I reflected bitterly, considering the two vampires standing closer to her than anyone else.

Alice's voice jerked me back to the rapidly deteriorating situation at hand. "Do you want to open your present now or later?" My eyes flew to Alice's hands. One was tugging Bella's wrist in my direction, leading her unwillingly across the car park. Unwillingly toward me, my mind repeated. I ignored it. Because Alice's other hand held a small, silver-wrapped square, a square that was the only birthday present I had made for Bella, and if I was angry before, I could feel the urge to rip Alice's head off surfacing quickly now. To be fair, I had asked Alice to give it to Bella for me, since she was already planning to violate my love's 'no gifts' rule, and I was trying not to make things worse. That did not, however, mean that she had the right to drag it out this morning, when Bella was already a wreck, make the morning worse, ruin the only gift that Bella might have enjoyed and ensure that I had destroyed her birthday as thoroughly as possible without slaughtering her family or similar brutality. I struggled to control myself. Protecting Bella was an activity that had to be undertaken rationally. I could protect Bella by picking Alice up by the collar and tossing her across the car park before she could make things any worse. That would not, however, make Bella's day any better, would not endear me to her, and would raise difficult questions in a reasonably populated school car park. All of which meant that, as usual, the best way to protect Bella was simply to pretend that everything was fine. I plastered on my best fake smile as Alice dragged my love closer. Her present idea having been downed (predictably) by Bella, Alice had moved on, ever optimistic.

"Did you like the scrapbook your mom sent you? And the camera from Charlie?"

These I already knew, first from Alice, then from Charlie, then from Alice again for confirmation. I thought it was an excellent idea, and had told Charlie as much. My family had few photos—while Esme went in and out of phases with cameras, there was little point considering our faultless memories. As for my human life…photos then had been sepia, hand tinted at best. I remembered one or two, but none remained—plundering relatives or careless loss had disposed of those things. Some days I wished I had them, a poor safeguard against the constant threat of forgetfulness; the distance of a human life and a blood family that faded too easily into sepia before grey and grey before nothing. Other days I was glad they were gone. Sharp, breathing evidence of that life that I had lost. Some reminders were best left alone.

Bella didn't sound enthusiastic about the camera, and I knew that Alice was no more surprised by that than I was. Unlike Alice, however, I saw Bella's retort coming when she was idiotic (and short-sighted) enough to point out that Bella would, indeed, only be a senior once. It was not often that Alice failed to see things coming. That it was something so hellishly obvious was the norm. I wondered absently whether throwing her across the parking lot mightn't have been the better plan. Bella, understandably, was now in, if possible, an even worse mood than before. I went over words in my mind. Play calm. Happy. Normal. Laugh. Don't let her dwell on it. Don't let her feel abnormal. The same formula as every day, though under somewhat more pressure this morning. I didn't let myself look properly at her face until I could feel her eyes on mine, because I knew just the way my thoughts would tilt sideways the second that I did. And they did. Thankfully, looking at Bella's face also made it infinitely easier to smile. I reached out one hand to her, trying not to feel nervous, needing to feel that she was still there, needing to know that she was still speaking to me, as obvious as it was. And the only thing more wonderful than the rush of warmth when her palm touched mine was the smile that lit up her face, and how impossible it was not to mirror it with my own.

It was so easy to drown in Bella's eyes, to forget it all, to feel…I squeezed her hand, barely, for an anchor, just holding her, trying desperately to keep my head. I needed to have my thoughts in order today. I couldn't afford to make a mistake and upset her. I squeezed her fingers again, enough for her to feel it, and the familiar quickening of her heartbeat filled me with her warmth. The nervousness retreating more quickly than Jasper could have forced it, I reached for her again, hungry for that warmth, the softness of her skin, the moment of contact, of undeniable closeness, that promised me she was still here and still here for me. I touched her lips, and resisted the urge to kiss her. Something in my mind knew that I should say something…but my mind was suddenly blank. I blinked, knowing that I had had a plan…I traced the outline of her lips, slowly as I could, while I tried to think. It was very difficult to think while touching Bella's lips, but I didn't want her to know that my mind had gone blank, and I didn't want to let go of her warmth. 'Happy birthday'. Well, no. No happy birthday. I gathered up the few of my wits that I could find.

"So, as discussed, I am not allowed to wish you a happy birthday, is that correct?"

I hoped desperately that I was treading the right line. I didn't want to ignore her birthday, but nor did I want to upset her further.

"Yes," she glared teasingly, "That is correct." I tried to quash the warmth flooding through me enough to think clearly. She sounded a little stilted, but that wasn't unusual. And she _was_ smiling beneath my hand.

I grinned. "Just checking."

I reluctantly let my fingers trail off her cheek, and tangled them firmly in my hair to stop myself pulling her into my arms. "You _might_ have changed your mind. Most people seem to enjoy things like birthdays and gifts."

I desperately hoped that the smile meant I was allowed to tease her, and wished that Alice wouldn't laugh so obviously, in case Bella felt that she was being laughed at. I wondered momentarily whether I was being paranoid. 'You're always paranoid,' I could hear Bella pointing out in my head. I wondered when Bella had become my conscience. It didn't surprise me.

I brought myself back to the present just in time to hear Alice manage, in that special way that only she could, to once again make things worse.

"What's the worst that could happen?" she grinned, and though a million answers flashed through my mind—this was Bella, after all—I knew which Bella would give.

"Getting older," she murmured. They were exactly the words that I expected, but they made it a thousand times more difficult to smile.

"Eighteen isn't very old," Alice protested, and I wished she'd just leave us to our misery. "Don't women usually wait till they're twenty-nine to get upset over birthdays?"

Could she not see how upset Bella was? Could she possibly think that this was helpful? And then, there it was.

"It's older than Edward."

And for the thousandth time in the past twenty-four hours, I discovered that however much one hates oneself, it is always possible to hate more deeply.

I ignored Alice after that. I couldn't stop her without causing a scene, and I couldn't think how she could make this any worse. Older than Edward. It was a tremendous effort to keep my face relatively neutral. Older than Edward? I was one-hundred-and-four-years-old, for Christ's sake. She wasn't older than me, she was never going to be older than me, and I wouldn't have cared in the least if she was. I tried to pretend that that was the point. It lasted all of about ten seconds. That wasn't the point. That wasn't the problem. The problem was the stories she told me, used to taunt me, provoked me with, trying to convince me that there was any justification for tearing away her humanity. What were we going to do when she looked like my mother? What was I going to do when she looked like my grandmother? I knew exactly what I was going to do—I was going to stay by her side and love her with all of my heart and with every fibre of my body until the day that she died, and then leave after her, though I could never follow her from there. She didn't approve of the plan…she didn't know of the second part of the plan, though I couldn't imagine she thought I would live on without her. And to her, as she had told me every day, every hour, in the lead-up to today, turning 18 was one symbolic step closer to… 'looking like my grandmother'. I failed to see the problem. The _problem_ came when she died. But it mattered to Bella. And for once, there was nothing—nothing morally reasonable—that I could do about it.

I was snapped out of my unpleasant—and by now repetitive—reverie by Alice all but squealing.

"Be fair, Bella!" she exploded, and I frowned as most of the heads in the car park turned our way. "You aren't going to ruin all our fun like that, are you?"

So she had already brought up the party, presumably in as inappropriate a way as the gift.

"I thought my birthday was about what _I_ want."

Goddamnit Alice…this was ending here. "I'll get her from Charlie's right after school," I glared at Alice, willing her to take the hint and leave.

"I have to work," glared Bella, significantly harder than I could. I knew that she didn't, but it didn't overly concern me. What did was finding a way to make Bella forgive me for Alice's idiocy.

"You don't, actually," gloated Alice, and I felt the renewed urge to strangle her. "I already spoke to Mrs Newton about it. She's trading your shifts. She said to tell you 'Happy Birthday.'"

"I—I still can't come over," choked out Bella, looking mildly panicked. "I, well, I haven't watched _Romeo and Juliet_ yet for English."

My 'getting rid of Alice' tactic was failing miserably.

Alice didn't hold back on the derision. "You have _Romeo and Juliet_ memorised."

"But Mr. Berty said we needed to see it performed to fully appreciate it—that's how Shakespeare intended it to be presented." I knew exactly how little Bella had been listening when Mr. Berty had said that, and exactly how many times we'd watched the movie together, though, to be fair, Bella wasn't necessarily paying much attention then, either.

"—the nineteen-sixties version—" which we watched in July, I noted, though I didn't pass it on to Alice—"Mr. Berty said it was the best," Bella continued, ever hopeful. This wasn't going to end well. I allowed Alice to glare at Bella for a total of five seconds before deciding that she wasn't going to stop on her own. No one else would have gotten that long.

"Relax, Alice," I growled, making sure that the words would sound neutral to Bella. There were advantages to a vampire's broader range of hearing. Alice stopped short. Now I just had to get Bella to the party and get rid of Alice in a way that didn't involve Bella hating me. It was times like this that made physically removing Alice and picking Bella up and carrying her off seem particularly appealing.

"If Bella wants to watch a movie, then she can," I hedged, hoping that this would win me back at least a little ground. "It's her birthday," I added. Get to the party…

"So there," Bella interrupted.

So much for seamlessly bringing in going to the party later. I opted for bluntness. "I'll bring her over around seven." And to get rid of Alice… "That will give you more time to set up." And if she didn't disappear now, I was going to make her.

Alice didn't miss my tone.

"Sounds good," she laughed artificially. "See you tonight, Bella! It'll be fun, you'll see."

I had my doubts, but, nightmare past five minutes aside, Alice was right. If we didn't celebrate Bella's birthday, it would only reinforce the idea that it was a cause for depression. Today needed to be handled sensitively—and Alice had just put me a mile behind at the starting post. Still. I was a vampire. I could run a mile in seconds. I would make today work out. I just needed time to talk to Bella alone. And—several students called out to Bella as they moved to class. So much for time.

"Edward, please—" she began, and I seriously considered deciding to skip class for the both of us. But that was not sensitivity. I quieted her with a finger on her lips…which didn't make me any more inclined to leave her and go to class. Sensitivity, I reminded myself. "Let's discuss it later," I sighed reluctantly. "We're going to be late for class."

* * *

-

A/N: So...there you go! Hope you enjoyed the beginning :D (resists the urge to add 'of the end') I've written a fair bit of this fic (in bits, most of which are half-way through the story P), and it's got a lot of my headspace, so I want it to be good. Which means...please help ;D Let me know what you liked, what you didn't, and which jokes were really really stupid :P I want to know. Really. I'll put the next chapter up as soon as I've drafted the one after! (ie. put the fic on story alert if you want more ;D)

Thanks for reading :-)

J


	3. Chapter 2: A Massive Step Toward 104

Disclaimer: All recognisable content belongs to Stephenie Meyer and her publishers. I claim nothing that is not mine. See bottom for fun author's note ;D

* * *

Chapter 2: A Massive Step Toward One-Hundred-and-Four

And so the day went on. English was an exercise in restraint. Every day Newton would smile at Bella, a wistful note touching his moronic thoughts as her name ghosted through his mind. Usually I ignored the boy—today, I wanted to rip his throat out. I dismissed it quickly. I had other things to consider.

I was caught between three plans—try to distract Bella from her birthday in whatever way occurred to me (success depending partly on how preoccupied Bella was with her misery but mostly on how much attention Mr Berty was paying to his students' extra-curricular activities), try to turn Bella's birthday into a positive event (this plan had the most desirable outcome but was, I had to admit, outstandingly unlikely to succeed) or, as a third option, try my hardest to disappear and hope that if she forgot I was here Bella might find her birthday less depressing. I quickly gave up on the last two options. If I had wanted to disappear, sitting next to Bella was a less than brilliant idea, and I knew that sitting elsewhere would only have upset her more—though her assumption that I was in some way unhappy with her may actually have been enough to drive her birthday from her mind. Or, my increasingly absent good sense chimed in, she might just have concluded that I was as horrified by her birthday as she was and no longer wanted to be around her as she aged. After all, eighteen was a massive step toward one-hundred-and-four. I tried not to glare at the sheer absurdity of the situation.

By the time English ended, Bella had spent almost thirteen minutes gazing at Mike Newton, and I was ready to kill him. Once, she had glanced from him to me and laughed, then frowned, then gone back to staring dourly at her book, and when seven entire minutes of devoted thought had left me still clueless as to what this could have meant, I decided that I disliked Bella's birthday as thoroughly as she did.

-

During the deliberately slow-paced twenty-three metre walk from English to Government, I attempted to put Plan One into action. Conversation failed miserably—Bella gave one word responses, apparently lost in thought. When I pulled her into my arms as we reached the classroom, she only looked beseechingly up at me and repeated her plea from the car park.

She stood very still, and her voice shook almost imperceptibly. "Edward, I don't want to go to your family's house."

But what could I say? Was I going to let Bella sit at home by herself her entire birthday, contemplating the many ways that I had made her life a misery? Carlisle and I had discussed this. We had known that Bella would initially be resistant to the idea of Alice's party, but had decided that it would almost certainly—the almost accounting for any major disasters, deadly lightening storms, hostile vampire attacks or similar—be good for her. Make her happier. In the end. I just had to get her—

My arms took Bella's weight easily as she slumped—the shock was not physical. The shock was her face when I instinctively lifted it to meet my eyes—hers were full of tears, almost falling, on the edge of falling apart. Bella had cried over her birthday before this, that was inescapable…but never here. Not at school. I brushed back her hair, uncertain of what to do, not wanting to make things worse. She would insist that she had been irredeemably humiliated if she cried in front of the other students, that much I knew. I bent down as far as I could without attracting attention, hoping I had effectively blocked her face from view.

She was shivering.

"Bella…" I whispered, uncertain whether I was making her cold, but knowing that letting go of her was a bad option.

I heard her swallow.

"Forget it, Edward," she muttered as she pulled away.

I stood on the concrete, staring after her, uncertain whether I should skip class to free her of my presence.

She turned at the door. She was trying to smile for the benefit of those inside, but her face was tight. "Come on, Edward. We'll be late."

I pleaded silently for her to step back from the door and come away somewhere else with me, prayed that I could think of something to say to make this better, swore to myself that I could fix this.

When she marched up to me, all but scowling, I was ready for her to hit me. Instead, she grabbed my wrist, pulled, hard, and began attempting to drag me toward the door. It took me more than a second to remember to move.

She wasn't happy. But she was touching me. That had to be something.

-

Before five minutes of government had passed, Bella had very obviously decided that she was bored with being annoyed with me, and had passed a reconciliatory note—'this is painful. I don't think Jefferson could speak any more slowly'—between our desks.

Personally, I thought that this was rather generous, both to Mr Jefferson, who was more than capable of being more painful, and had demonstrated so only last lesson, and to me, given that I had destroyed her birthday, allowed Alice to make it even worse, and thus far done nothing to fix it.

I deliberated over my reply as quickly as I could, knowing how Bella hated it when I over-thought these things, and settled for a simple: 'Remember last lesson? I love you.' The last part wasn't strictly related to her note, but it felt right to say it…it always felt right to say it. It occurred to me several seconds after I'd passed the note that I'd left a dangerous opening—there was a significant risk at this point that the next note would read somewhere along the lines of 'then why am I older than you now?' or one of the similar retorts that had met most of my attempts at affection over the past week. But Bella's mood seemed to have genuinely lifted, or her attempt to stop being annoyed at me was receiving more energy than usual—she only smiled, if a little wryly, scrawling back a quick 'yeah, I know. Stupid Edward.'

By the time class ended, things seemed almost back to normal—I whispered in Bella's ear when Mr Jefferson's back was to us, passed her notes when he was facing mostly away, and spent the little time that he actually spoke in the direction of the class gazing at Bella out of the corner of my eye and daydreaming about all the times I wanted to spend with her, the things I wanted to do with her, to give her, to be for her…until she'd lean over to me the second that Mr Jefferson's back was turned again and scold me for making her blush.

-

It was strangely satisfying to imagine buying Bella gifts, particularly ones that she could wear. The idea of visibly marking her as mine was undeniably appealing. Today, I could not banish diamonds from my mind. As we walked from our Government class to her Trig, I could see the Star of the East hanging at her collarbone. 'I have a gift for you,' I would tell her, and her eyes would widen and her sweet lips would part and gasp in breath when I showed her the gem. I shook my head minutely at my impossible—ridiculous—vision, smiling despite myself at the angel holding my hand in hers. Her eyes might widen, but she'd be horrified.

To be totally realistic, it was an idiotic idea. Bella had enough difficulty staying out of trouble as it was—she didn't need the kind of ostentatious finery that could make her a target for thieves. That didn't mean I didn't want to give it to her. Some days Bella just made me feel…ostentatious. I wanted the world to know, to see, that she was mine. I wanted to shout it to the stars. I knew that the sentiment was childish – bordering on animalistic – but I felt it all the same. I hated the long line of men still dreaming about my Bella, and I hated the few who still thought that they could have her most of all.

I sighed as we approached her building – time for my one tedious hour per day of sitting alone and watching the minds of others watching her. At least the most hated list had essentially reduced itself to one person. Only Mike Newton was foolish enough still to think that he could take my Bella from me, and he was quickly becoming resigned to the truth now that school had resumed at Forks High.

I turned my mind forcibly away from Newton and back to conveniently visible potential gifts. Bella had resisted birthday presents, and I was loath to ignore her wishes, seeing as her misery was rooted in my curse. But Christmas was approaching, and perhaps she would allow me a gift then. I would have to find a way to make it inexpensive, no doubt, but I could do that. I wanted her to wear my ring—I wanted her to be mine, officially, incontrovertibly mine—and if proposing marriage to her while we were still technically in school was…impractical, I could nonetheless give her something. A promise ring, of sorts. Surely she could not object to that. Something that would show any man who might think of her that she was most definitely unavailable. Designs were already flitting through my mind. I grinned to myself. I owned enough loose gems that I could have a ring made without technically spending an overly large sum of money. With a little effort, it might just work.

"What are you grinning about?"

Blaming every time I smiled on how beautiful she was had stopped working some time over the summer, though, to be fair, most things I smiled at did come back to that. She had become more perceptive, though—more suspicious of my thoughts. It was necessary now to tell her something closer to the truth. "I was thinking of inexpensive Christmas gifts for you," I approximated, "since you irrationally object to my spending money on you."

She glared, but I didn't need to see her thoughts to know that she was not angry. Though she was still upset about the party, not mentioning it was working well – her voice was not entirely resentful.

"We are going to have to set a clear price limit for Christmas. I will not have you buying me outrageous gifts. You know I don't have the money to reciprocate."

I wrapped my arms around her shoulders as we reached her class, breathed in her scent and the softness of her skin against my lips, locked it in my memory to last me the next hour. "I don't need anything, love," I murmured in her ear. "I already have you."

She spun round to face me, clearly having minor difficulties with staying balanced. I didn't let her fall. I wondered whether she had fallen a lot before I'd been here to stop her, or whether she really was correct when she said that a lot of her difficulty standing was due to me. She was biting her lip again, drawing my attention irresistibly to her perfect mouth, though I knew that she didn't mean to. I also knew that she was trying to look stern, but I couldn't help that she only looked absurdly adorable. I could see that she was fighting a smile. The blood rushed to her cheeks as she faced me and sent sensation rushing through my body beyond my control.

"The same goes for you," she muttered, swaying slightly in my arms.

"Mmm," I laughed, leaning my face in toward hers, "But you deserve so much more than me. I don't deserve half of you."

"Don't be stupid," she mumbled, still chewing nervously on her lips.

I couldn't resist. I leaned in the rest of the way and captured her mouth with mine, just for a moment…just a few seconds…her whole body melting into me so impossibly soft as her beautiful lips caressed mine…it was an effort of will to pull away. I licked my lips, quickly, too quickly for her to notice, drinking in the taste of her.

"I'm not," I answered her belatedly, unable to stop myself grinning.

"Edward…" she protested weakly, but she was stretching up to kiss me again, and I was simply not that strong. I didn't need to be that strong, I reminded myself as I most willingly obliged. She was mine. Miraculous as it was, this was somehow alright. I didn't pull back this time until her throat was tight for lack of breath. She smiled almost drunkenly up at me, leaning back against my arms. I pulled her tight to my chest and kissed her hair, relaxing into her scent, relishing the easily ignored burning in my throat.

It was moments like this that I couldn't help rationalising – there was hardly a need for her to finish school if she wanted to stay forever with me. She wouldn't need to work. She would hardly miss senior trig and Spanish. And I could always teach them to her if she did. There was no real need for her to leave my arms and go to class…

"Hey, Bella!" The resentment was thick and clear in Newton's interruption. "You're going to be late!" He paused a moment, as though hoping she'd leap from my arms and come with him, before passing on through the door with the resigned expression that was becoming more and more common. _Damn Cullen_, I heard as he shuffled to his seat. _He's not even in this class. All over her like she belongs to him. She has to get sick of him eventually…_

And that, of course, was the problem. There was every need for her to finish school, there was every need for her to leave my arms and go to class, because while she was mine for now, she was still a beautiful, intelligent, **human** woman with a family and a life and a world that I could never be part of. And one day, a day that would inevitably come sooner than I was ready for, because I would never be ready…one day she would want a man who could age with her and give her children and have a human life with her, and on that day Michael Newton—even his name made me furious—would be right, and she would be sick of me, and she would leave me behind for a job and a family and a human husband.

"Edward?"

Her voice pulled me out of my miserable reflections more effectively than was surely possible.

"What's wrong, Edward?"

I took a brief moment to let her face, her eyes, her warmth in my arms calm me. I smiled. Smiling was so easy for my angel. "Nothing, love. Nothing at all."

I could see in her eyes that she didn't believe me, even as I kept on smiling. I cut her off before she could ask again. "You need to go to class, love."

She turned her head to look around, and I couldn't help but laugh as she blushed again. God she was beautiful. I reluctantly loosened my arms.

"Everyone's already in…" she mumbled, still blushing furiously.

I grinned as I kissed her forehead one last time. "I'll see you in an hour, love."

She nodded as she stepped away. "Bye…" And she stumbled through the door, still a vivid, wonderful shade of pink.

"Bye, my Bella," I whispered at the empty doorway, deliberately ignoring the thoughts of everyone inside. There was no one around.

-

I strolled into my class across the campus, back to normal speed, just before the teacher arrived.

* * *

A/N: So! Thanks for returning for chapter 2, and welcome to new readers! I've decided that I'm going to make this fic a Thursday update - so I will try my very, very hardest to give you a new chapter every Thursday (or, in this case, an hour before Thursday ;D).

So many of you mentioned the more subtle points of 'match-up' with New Moon that I thought I'd set a challenge this week - whoever can tell me what Bella's thinking in the third paragraph gets...virtual cookies! :D (hint: it's canon :P)

Edward says hi! And, as always...please review :D I really appreciate it :) Fics are always fun when they have a bit of community spirit :) (and this one could do with some fun at the moment - the upcoming is not 'fun' to write :S -hugs Edward-) So say hi :) Can't wait to hear your thoughts!


	4. Chapter 3: Beautiful

A/N: Edward is multilingual. I am not :-( All foreign phrases below are from the horror of online translators (so don't laugh at me :P). If anyone speaks…anything (;D), please correct my translator lines :D

All translations are at the bottom :-)

* * *

Chapter 3: Beautiful

By the time lunch arrived, the situation seemed, miraculously, to have improved. Spanish had provided one opportunity after another to distract Bella from her depression. This was a significant improvement on her trig class, through which she had remained unenthused. I couldn't help but be relieved that she was not, at least, more miserable in my presence.

Bella's response to me in Spanish class was a matter of daily change and careful measuring. It ranged between pleasure at my advantage over the other students, fascination with the act of my speaking Spanish itself, and the worse days that I still did not fully understand, when Bella would frown and shrink into herself, and refuse to tell me what had made her unhappy. 'You're just so good at…everything,' she would mumble or, more recently, glare or just burst out when pushed, and her mood might have made sense if she was jealous, but she wasn't—and she certainly had no reason to be. Bella could never be jealous of me. The mere idea was ridiculous. She was just…sad, in a way that I knew connected to me, though I could never tell how.

Today, however, Bella was somewhere in between response numbers one and two, and I was profoundly thankful. Where passing Bella answers would normally be an act undertaken only by the most unobservant, or perhaps suicidal, fool, today, toward the end of the lesson, Bella explicitly asked for my assistance. I wondered whether it was ridiculous that I should swell with such pride. No. Not ridiculous. Just exceptional. Bella was too exceptional.

Her eyes stayed on me when I was called on by the idiotic woman trying to teach the class, and I suspended my usual practice of ignoring the lesson in favour of volunteering every answer, drawing each out to twice their necessary length for the way that Bella smiled, the way her eyes changed, and my heart soared.

"Mi amor es más brillante que las estrellas en el cielo," I would answer the sulking teacher. Or "La muchacha se cayó en el umbral," trying my best not to grin.

I would describe the characteristics of a highway or the rise in population or the food in the cafeteria at lunch. And like I was saying something genius, something meaningful, something beautiful, Bella stared at me enraptured, and I felt for fleeting moments like an angel, a piece of art, a something worth looking at. I had to smile. Only Bella could make me feel that human. By the end of class, I had taken to making my answers at least three times as long as the question, and Mrs Goff's quest to outsmart me was only helping my cause.

Bella choked back laughter, biting her lip in that way that made my whole body melt, as we left the classroom last.

"Did you see Mrs Goff's face when you started talking about the Brazilian dancers? I thought she was going to black out. And then you corrected her about Brazil speaking Portuguese…poor woman."

I hardly felt the woman deserved pitying when she was trying to teach her class that Brazil spoke Spanish. Nor did I feel she had any reason to be so shocked by my answers—it was not difficult to give an artistic impression of a Brazilian dance bar when one both spoke Spanish and had visited Brazil. I didn't say that to Bella. "I decided to draw out my answer a little."

Bella grinned and, inexplicably, began to blush. "I noticed."

I reached compulsively for the warmth of her flushed cheeks, making her jump a little as I stepped in behind her, palms drinking in the warmth of her enclosed blood, letting the soft heat in her hair seep into my frozen cheek.

"I had a good reason," I whispered, ducking my head to brush her ear with my lips.

"Oh?"

We were almost at the cafeteria, and I pulled Bella quickly off the path and round the corner of building 4. I couldn't help but grin as she tried and failed to glare at me.

"¿Te gusta cuando hablo español?"

Bella blushed furiously and I held her gaze while she failed to speak. Any shame I had once felt at how very much I enjoyed the blush of her cheeks had faded over the summer. Bella opened and closed her mouth in silence.

"¿Mi amor?"

Finally, she managed to stop blushing enough to almost frown. Her voice was petulant. "I don't know what you said."

I clamped my mouth closed and didn't laugh…loudly. I didn't particularly want one of the teaching staff glancing around the corner just this second. I bent down until I could rest my forehead on hers, sliding my hands down her tiny, fragile arms 'til I could thread her fingers through mine. "You do."

Bella shrugged weakly.

"Is that a yes?"

"I don't know what you're talking about…"

She bit her lip self-consciously, trying to regain her senses, and I gave in to the loss of mine. Her mouth was warm and soft and carelessly responsive against my lips, and it was still an effort after all these months to keep enough of my wits about me not to give in altogether. I pulled away to press kisses over her jaw, up the delicate curve to the base of her ear, down the glorious line of her neck when the need to taste her in my mouth, on my tongue, to properly kiss her soft flesh and _taste_ her became too strong. She loosened under my touch, falling sweet and pliant and thoughtless into my arms as I shifted my grip to her waist to hold her up. I made myself pull back when I'd kissed all the way along her collarbone, over her smooth shoulder, round to the perfect nape of her neck, holding her tight against my chest. I pressed my lips to her warm, silk skin once more before letting her hair fall back from my hand.

She breathed out.

"Bella?"

A moment's pause. "Mmmm…?"

I couldn't help but laugh, just a little. "You haven't answered my question."

She turned her head to rest her cheek against my chest, and the warmth made me nearly as giddy as she was.

"What question?"

"Do you enjoy it when I speak Spanish?"

Her arms wrapped tightly around my waist, and I held her closer in case she was worried about falling.

"I like you speaking anything…"

Her voice was soft, sleepy, and I could feel her blush without having to look. I pulled her gently up so that she was at least standing properly on her own feet, trying hard not to grin like an idiot.

"So…"

"Mm?"

"Русский имеет такое же влияние?"

"Edward!" She laughed quietly, trying to glare up at me, lips clamped shut but hiding nothing. I rested a finger lightly on her mouth. I could feel her lips tremble as she tried to keep them shut.

"Not Russian?" I teased, following her deliberately shifting glance until I caught her eyes. "それから多分日本語。美しい、考えないであるか。"

"Edward, now I really don't know what you're saying."

It was hard not to look smug. "You knew before, then? Or do you just particularly dislike Japanese?"

Bella groaned loudly, and I hoped vaguely that everyone was already in the cafeteria. "Of course I knew before. Now stop showing off, stupid vampire."

I grinned wickedly. "I know you like French. I've seen your eyes glaze over in old films…"

It was too easy to make her blush for it to be altogether fair. She made one last ditch effort to distract me, clearly aware that it would fail miserably. "We should go to—"

"Est-ce que je suis correct ?"

She batted weakly at my chest with the back of her hand—it had taken her two whole weeks at the start of summer to realise that hitting me any harder, while doing no damage to me, was only going to end with her hand wrapped in mine for the rest of the day, she mumbling how my skin worked better than ice.

I trapped her hands behind her back before she could do herself any damage.

"Parlez-vous un français, Bella?"

"You know perfectly well that I don't," she glared, struggling weakly against my hold, pushing her forehead half-heartedly against my chest without, unsurprisingly, any success.

"Hmmm," I mused, almost surprising myself with my theatrics, but not really. "Well, in that case, I might just have to settle for my favourite."

She glared. "And what's that?"

"Interestingly enough, I never much liked it until I met you."

It worked—her face softened, the warmth of her body rising just a little in my arms. "Oh?"

It was cheesy. Terribly so. I couldn't resist. "Sì, mia bella."

For one long moment, Bella stopped moving, face frozen, staring as though I'd just suggested that we move to Miami. For one brief second, I was terrified that I'd somehow managed to upset her again. And then, coming back to life, she burst out laughing, shaking in my arms, beautiful, impossible smile lighting up her face. I released her wrists before she could strain her shoulders.

"Edward…" she gasped, almost doubled over, "Edward, that was…absolutely…tragic!"

She pulled one arm from where it had landed on my waist to clutch at her mouth, trying to quiet her laughter. I grinned not altogether sheepishly.

"Edward Cullen…"

"Yes?"

Bella's eyes were wide with disbelief. "Sì…mia…" she gave up repeating my admittedly less than brilliant line as she dissolved once more into laughter.

Part of me told me that staying here for the rest of lunch was an inspired idea. Part of me told me that taking Bella somewhere else, where there wasn't the danger of someone wandering around the corner, was an even better one. And my logical mind reminded me, as usual, thank God, that I could not take Bella out of school for the rest of the day, and that her newfound good mood would rapidly disappear if some idiotic teacher heard us here and embarrassed her.

Wondering whether I was doomed always to work against myself, I lifted Bella fully upright again and lowered my lips to her ear.

"As much as I would love to watch you laugh for the rest of the day, love, we should go in to lunch before one of your admirers comes searching."

Bella struggled unstably to put her full weight on her feet. "Yeah…yeah…" She was still gasping in breath.

I kept my hand on her shoulder, just to steady her as we returned to the path. "Come on, love."

Bella shot me one last incredulous look, barely restraining her mirth. "You are unbelievable."

I shrugged, torn between the shameless desire to smirk and the urge to grimace instead. "I _am_ a terrifying mythical creature."

"Edward!"

And then the door was before us, and the swarms of students were too close for even Bella's whispered shouts of mock-scolding to continue. I settled for winding my arm properly into hers. I let my lips brush her ear one more time.

"I love you," I whispered, as the noise of a full high school lunch room and the once overwhelming scent of 300 living humans crashed over us.

Bella smiled awkwardly, blushing bright red, unnoticed by the throngs of people. Her hand tightened for a moment around my wrist. "Love you too," she murmured into the noise, and though she didn't look up, I knew that she meant me and me alone to hear.

* * *

The school day passed without further incident. Bella was trapped speaking to Jessica long enough in the lunch line for me to warn Alice off further mention of the date. With an effort of decisiveness, I was able to make her visions of the future should she disobey perfectly clear. Her desire not to be tossed into the pizza tray (_Edward! This top is one of a kind! White! Silk!) _made it somewhat easier to rapidly convince Alice that I would not resist the urge to remove her the next time she disturbed Bella's peace.

_I can't believe you're actually considering that!_ she cried out, a rather satisfying image of me dragging her bodily out of the cafeteria playing several different ways through her mind.

"I'm more than considering it, Alice," I all but snarled under my breath. Bella was smiling and nodding at one of Jessica's painful stories, eyes clear, body relaxed, apparently unworried by today's occasion. I had successfully executed my somewhat lacking plan to distract Bella from her misery. If possible, I wanted that success to last at least until after school, when she could have some privacy to deal with her irrational feelings. I turned my back to Bella as the line moved and Jessica's story came to a close.

"If she doesn't want any of them to know it's her birthday," I leaned closer to Alice, speaking just loud enough for her to hear, "Then no one will know."

Alice sighed loudly. _Spoilsport…_

Bella's hand on my shoulder was more than enough to shift my focus.

"Save me," she whispered darkly, strained on tiptoes to reach my ear.

I grinned as I spun and lifted her momentarily off the ground, arms round her waist, feeling her warmth against my chest rush through me and relax me. She glared less-than-half-heartedly as I put her down. I raised an eyebrow, trying not to show how giddy she made me—still, after half a year.

"What is it you need saving from?" I traced my palms slowly down the length of her arms to hold her hands in mine and leaned in compulsively to kiss her forehead as she shivered. "I thought we'd already decided that there's nothing in the lunch room for you to trip over?"

She glared harder. "Stop smirking, you stupid, self-satisfied…idiot," she edited, and I knew she had been going to say 'vampire' before she realised where she was. It made me smile—the way she joked about what I was, as though it were just another minor flaw, and not my curse, my damnation, the thing that made me so unworthy of her love. The thing she so desperately, foolishly, naively wanted to be.

"Me? Idiot?" I questioned teasingly as I pushed her in front of me in the lunch line – appearances aside, I did have sufficient sense to realise that it was Jessica she wanted saving from. "Strange. I'd heard that I was reasonably intelligent."

She snorted laughter, pulling my arms around her as the long, winding queue ground to a halt once more. "And modest, too," she laughed quietly, blushing when she spotted the two tables of sophomore girls who had been watching us raptly for the length of our conversation.

"Stupid girls," she muttered after a moment, and I tightened my arms around her as we moved forward, doing my best to focus on her thoroughly endearing if totally irrational jealousy rather than on the infuriating commentaries and mildly sickening fantasies of the sophomores.

Bella's persistent paranoia was a mystery to me. As far as I could remember, no other human at Forks High had ever held a conversation of any length with me, and my memory was flawless, every minute of every day. Even at Bella's lunch table, Alice and I remained separate to the humans. Bella spoke to her human friends, and she spoke to us, and the line in between was not crossed. We no longer sat at a different table now that it was only Alice and I keeping up the pretence, but the distance might as well have been the same. I was glad. The thoughts of most of the children were more than enough for me.

My many-times-repeated consideration of Bella's jealousy absorbed me for almost half of fifth lesson. Biology class held a special nostalgia for Bella and I, and I enjoyed watching Bella here more than perhaps in any other class. Mr. Banner, however, kept a closer eye on his students than any other teacher, and when we weren't doing practical lab work I had far less chance to speak to Bella than during the rest of the day. Basic genetics dragged. Genetics was marginally more interesting now that I knew someone to whom it applied, but might have been significantly more so had I not already known the field in far greater depth than the superficially informed teacher.

Gym was no better. Pretending to suffer the physical restrictions of a human was never enjoyable. Running faster than the other male students of Forks High was hardly satisfying when I could move six times faster, effortlessly, with Bella, or much, much faster, if not quite as enjoyably, without her. Lessons had become more difficult still since transferring into Bella's class. While watching Bella attempt to play sports was not always entirely disagreeable, mostly for reasons that would probably horrify her and often did me, there was nothing at all pleasant about watching my angel get more and more miserable as she repeatedly came in last, struggling to stay on her feet, breathless and more often than not suffering a range of inconsequential injuries from falling over. Being unable to intervene was intolerable. I could not wait for athletics to finish for the year. Afterward she would glare at me, go silent, and refuse to believe that it was impossible for her to be humiliated in front of me because it was impossible for me ever to think of her as any less than perfect.

"Damn it, Edward, stop…" she gritted her teeth and stormed away without finishing her sentence.

It wasn't difficult to keep up with her. "Bella, love, what do you want me to do?"

"Just leave me alone, Edward!"

It hurt, though I knew she wasn't serious. "You don't mean that."

She ground to a halt, spinning to face me. "Maybe if your ideas about 'perfection' weren't so completely insane, Edward, you wouldn't be so goddamn difficult about this."

I almost smiled at her temper, in the half second before I realised that 'this' wasn't related to the gym lesson. "Bella…"

"Just let me get changed in peace, Edward. I'll see you outside."

There were many things to say, but I'd said each of them a dozen times before. She hadn't moved—she clearly expected me to argue. _Or_, the malicious voice in the corner of my mind whispered, _she's hoping you'll suddenly stop being 'difficult'._

A small group of girls had gathered at the door of the change room, whispering and pointing with thoughts that no longer surprised me. This discussion had become significantly counter productive. I bent quickly to kiss the top of Bella's head, wondering for the millionth time how, if she hated me so for refusing to kill her, she could still want to damn herself to be with me.

"I love you," I murmured, and wondered whether it wasn't more to comfort myself.

She looked down. "Yeah. I know." She sighed tiredly. "You too."

I let myself glare at the whispering, malicious, deluded girls as Bella walked past them into the change rooms, blushing furiously and trying to be invisible.

When she was out of sight, I crossed at barely human pace to the male change rooms, dressed without thinking, and went to wait for her by the door of the gym. So much for distracting Bella into enjoying her birthday. It seemed I could only make things worse by the minute. I gritted my teeth and wondered when I had become so pathetic. So the ongoing 'impasse' made distracting Bella somewhat difficult. I had probably eight hours of the day left, and I was never going to fix this by wallowing in everything I'd managed to do wrong. No, when Bella emerged from the change rooms I was going to start over, and get this right. I was perfectly capable of distracting Bella beyond the point of sensible thought, and while I usually tried to do this only when Bella wasn't interested in sensible thought, today was an exception. I could and _would_ 'dazzle' Bella into enjoying her afternoon.

As I contemplated the best ways of implementing my 'dazzling' plan, Michael Newton exited the gym, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye.

_Damn Cullen, casually standing there, all serious…probably coming up with his next _super_-genius_ _advance in _super_-biology…_

I had to crack a smile. I resisted the urge to notify him how far off base he was, though the thought of his envy and resignation, the scandalised expression on his face and the recognition that Bella was _mine_ made the idea extremely tempting.

I couldn't quite recall _when_ I'd transitioned from someone who might well have been thinking about advanced genetics, or something else requiring half a brain, to a pathetic idiot contemplating how to seduce defenceless schoolgirls, but given the cause of the change, I couldn't help grinning.

Said defenceless schoolgirl appeared in the doorway, still frowning a little, trying to fix her hair, and thoughts of Newton quickly faded.

She raised an eyebrow at my grin and I leaned conspiratorially to whisper in her ear.

"Newton," I approximated, and she rolled her eyes and shoved me playfully down the path to the car park.

"Leave Mike alone," she scolded, still shaking her head.

"He was trying to guess what I was thinking."

She shot a look of what I was mostly sure was pity at the idiotic boy, now across the car park. "I'll have to ask him if he figured it out," she retorted dryly.

Figuring out how that was meant, I decided, could not be helpful. Her footsteps sounded loud next to mine.

"Edward?" We stepped into the car park, and I followed her toward her truck. "What _were_ you thinking?"

I smiled, editing just a little. "Just about how beautiful you are."

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A/N: Hooray for happy Edward! ;D Hope you all enjoyed this week's instalment, and please review! I appreciate every one of them :-) As I mentioned up top, please correct Edward's foreign languages if you know them, 'cause I don't! :S ;P (thanks to Muxu for correcting some of the Spanish :D)

Translations:

Mi amor es más brillante que las estrellas en el cielo – "My love shines brighter than the stars in the sky" (Spanish).

La muchacha se cayó en el umbral – "The girl tripped over the threshold" (Spanish).

¿Te gusta cuando hablo español? – "Do you like it when I speak Spanish?" (Spanish)

¿Mi amor? – "My love?" (Spanish)

Русский имеет такое же влияние? – "Does Russian have the same effect?" (Russian)

それから多分日本語。それは美しい言語である、そうですね。– "Then perhaps Japanese. It is a beautiful language, don't you think?" (Japanese)

Est-ce que je suis correct ? – "Am I right?" (French)

Parlez-vous un français, Bella? – "Do you speak any French, Bella?" (French)

Sì, mia bella – "Yes, my beautiful/Bella" (Italian) – 'Bella' means 'beautiful' in Italian. Edward is making a really, really bad pun :-P Isn't he adorable? ;-D

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	5. Chapter 4: Incredibly Distracting

Chapter 4: Incredibly Distracting

Bella didn't speak again as we crossed to her truck, and I let myself fall into the flow of thought a moment, take an unnecessary breath full of car exhaust and blood and Forks' ever-present moisture.

The rain fell on our skin the same way the world over – it didn't quite freeze, but slowed, solidifying, losing its meagre heat to stone that could barely warm…that I'd thought couldn't warm, until Bella had come and warmed me with her hands, heat pulsing through her skin from sweet, rushing blood. It was torture and bliss feeling that heat come into me, the heat that I craved with none of the relief. The daily exchange of physical agony for peace and conscience, small measure of peace though it was.

The rain did not slow and half-freeze on Bella's skin – it ran off, and hung in droplets, and soaked through her clothes where they weren't covered by her coat and darkened her hair and made her smell _incredible_.

The sound of rain was both the same as I almost remembered it being as a human, and profoundly different. The patter, the rush, if one did not focus, the background comfort of white sound, of touching your skin and your hair and the trees and the sky and the ground. Now, if I focused, I could hear the touch of water on skin, the slide of a droplet in Bella's hair and the shattering of one on slick asphalt. The weighting of pine boughs and the release from the clouds. Things that humans could not hear. Truths and wonders that they could not know about destruction and return and a world they didn't need to understand.

The taste of the rain and how it carries all it has touched.

The individual reflections and refractions visible in each drop, mirroring and mocking and containing tiny worlds doomed to smash.

The smell of the rain and the smell of the wet. The rich sweetness of wet pine forest. The burning richness of Bella's skin, drenched, her dripping hair and sparkling drops on eyelashes and dampness on her lips and that _smell_.

The rain could be incredibly distracting.

I didn't realise that we had reached Bella's monstrosity—or that I had opened the passenger door for her—until she spoke.

"It's my birthday, don't I get to drive?"

I hated Bella driving in the rain, though I'd never be foolish enough to tell her that. "I'm pretending it's not your birthday, just as you wished."

"If it's not my birthday, then I don't have to go to your house tonight…"

I should have seen that coming. "All right." I made the effort not to smile and focused on the droplets on her skin instead. Bella always looked like an angel, but outside in the rain she was a goddess. It rained a lot in Forks. The water, lifeless yet so intrinsic to life, made everything a shade more vivid. Bella shone. And I felt almost as though my flesh might bleed again. I rounded the truck, deliberately slow, and reached around her to open the driver's side door. "Happy birthday."

I grinned as she hushed me and almost grinned herself, climbing into the cab and dripping all over the seat. I returned to the passenger side at human pace, enjoying the feel of the rain and wishing that my jacket were not necessary for appearances.

My new plan came into action once we were out of the car park and on the main road of Forks. Dazzling Bella while she was driving would be a hazard, but I could begin groundwork for the party tonight. I fiddled conspicuously with the radio dials as she drove straight ahead, rain sheeting across the windshield. I promised myself absently that I would never let Bella drive in this kind of weather on any route that she knew less well than this.

"Your radio has horrible reception," I began, nonchalant, as another channel murmured under white noise, signal weakened by the weather.

I could _feel_ Bella fuming. "You want a nice stereo? Drive your own car."

I was tempted to suggest that I _give_ her my car, since I wasn't about to send her off into this kind of storm alone, but thought better of it. Bella wouldn't speak to me for at least the next hour if she realised I was in the cab with her out of concern for her safety. And she'd never let me buy her a new car when the monster truck collapsed if she thought she could compromise by taking one of my old ones (and I shuddered to think of some of the past vehicles abandoned in storage garages around the country).

The downpour turned the scenery into cellophane and stained glass, faint, blurred colours through a screen of mottled water. My eyes could pick out the shapes if I so chose – I knew that Bella, on the other hand, was peering through the momentary clarity of wiper streaks. Trees became shadows in bottle green, shifting like waves in the building gale that Alice promised would suddenly drop away before evening fell. The green closed as we left Forks central, becoming walls on either side, and closed again as we turned off the main road, joining over the narrower ways to form canopies, a world enveloped in green—_too green_, Bella had once mumbled in her sleep.

By the time we reached Bella's home, I had almost lost sight of my plan. The slight jolt of the car pulling in—Bella was a relatively good driver, for a human as clumsy as she was—brought me back to reality, and I turned to her before she could gather her things.

This I had planned down to the moment. It was important not to get caught up in…her…and lose track. There was a fine line this week between dazzling Bella and having her in tears.

Her skin was damp beneath my fingertips and impossibly warm.

"You should be in a good mood, today of all days," I whispered, breathing in the fire of her breath, the warmth that did not touch the pain.

She trembled in my hands, just enough to send vibrations shivering over my palms and tilting my sanity. "And if I don't want to be in a good mood?" She wasn't going to fight me, I could see she had decided that already, but the sentiment was real and it broke me the same way it had broken me every day and a million times worse. I would make this better. I would fix this. I _would_ protect her.

I felt everything in me burning and knew, somewhere beneath thought, that this was right—this need to protect, the way my body surged and responded in an instinctual, possessive impulse, was every bit as strong as the need to kill, if less familiar and less constant. I leaned closer to her and let it take over, let this part of me that I could trust, the part of me that would throw myself in front of anything for Bella, fill me up and draw me to her. I waited until our lips were all but touching, until I could taste the way her skin changed the water lingering there, to speak. "Too bad," I whispered, fighting the urge to taste those hanging droplets and the scent that stayed in them.

And as she swayed unsteadily toward me, I pressed my lips to hers and melted into her, tiny rain droplets passing through my lips from where they rested on hers and filling my mouth with her taste, begging me to take her blood, screaming to taste her fully. When her arms latched around my neck I forced myself to release her and, after a few moments, managed to draw back before she could provoke me any further. I reached back to shift her hands with my own rather than relying on her to let go—I was always concerned that one day I would pull away too forcefully and break her fingers, the way she clung to me. _The way I wanted to cling to her_.

She smiled sheepishly as I controlled my face, swallowed the venom and looked back down. I couldn't resist the urge to touch my lips to her skin once more—I would never allow myself to lick the raindrops from her the way I couldn't help but imagine, but if they happened to come away on my lips, it was hardly my fault. Her cheek yielded beneath even my softest touch, warm and soft and wet. I could hear her heart racing. I was getting far better at not letting it spur me on. "Be good, please," I murmured, silently repeating the same thing to myself.

The raindrops clung to my lips like picking fruit or skimming flowers, and I was glad she could not see as I licked them before I kissed her. On these days, when she stood outside too long and the rain soaked her through and her taste was in the water on my lips, it was impossible not to remember the way her blood had tasted, more heavenly than imaginable, more…more relief, more relief than I had thought possible. Moments, whole moments, second after second after second of no pain. An indefinable time of thirst quenched, of flesh that felt whole, of satiated glory, of the need, the hellish, wonderful need to just keep drinking, to keep on feeling it, tasting it, drowning in it…I pulled away sharply as I forced my head back to the present. It was unforgivable. To sit here, Bella's wrists trapped in my grip, Bella's lips pressed trusting, loving, warm against mine, and daydream about killing her…not only was it morally repugnant, it was dangerous. Fantasising about the taste of Bella's blood was hardly a good strategy for reducing its pull. I folded Bella's arms safely across her chest before I could get too angry with myself and snap them without thinking.

"Do you think I'll ever get better at this? That my heart might someday stop trying to jump out of my chest whenever you touch me?"

Her voice pulled me, for the thousandth time today, out of my thoughts, and I wished that for once in my 'life' I could just focus. The thirst made focus a delusion at best. I grinned as best I could, pushed the rest forcibly from my mind, and made myself return to my plan. Dazzling was clearly working. This was a good thing. "I really hope not," I murmured, belatedly remembering that her statement had been phrased as a question.

Bella, unsurprisingly, rolled her eyes, and I, unsurprisingly, only wanted to kiss her again. The plan _was_ to dazzle her, I reasoned. She didn't actually have anything to do with her afternoon. There would be nothing at all wrong with sitting in the truck and…

"Let's go watch the Capulets and Montagues hack each other up, all right?"

Foiled.

I wondered faintly when Bella had come to have almost more self-control than I did. I performed the tiniest mock-bow as I sat back and pulled both our book bags inside my coat. "Your wish, my command."

I was, a moment too late, enormously glad that she was too 'dazzled' to retort in the way that I had come to fear.

_Then why am I still human?_

-

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-

A/N: Sorry this chapter is so short guys (posting it a few hours early to show I mean it :P)! My one copy of New Moon (if only I were writing Eclipse, of which I now have 3 copies...) has been on loan to my two siblings all week, so I could only write as far as I could remember the dialogue word perfect...the next scene obviously has a little more dialogue, so I didn't want to do it without the book. Have the book back tonight, though, so I'll try to make next week's chapter long for you all! :D Hope you enjoyed angsty-manly-'distracted' Edward (my sister's descriptions upon betaing the chapter) :P

Annnnd (:P)...reviews are always always always muchly appreciated! Nothing gives energy when Edward wakes up to write at 4 in the morning like reviews! :D Thank you for all your support thus far :-) You make me believe in this crazy undertaking ;D


	6. Chapter 5: To My Love

Hey guys! First of all, an apology – this was meant to be double the length, but I had so much trouble with this chapter that I could only get the first half done for tonight :( So it's only a normal length chapter, instead of a super-long one. Sorry! Second of all, a, massive thank you to:

SassyAni, Sakiru Yume, wontgrowsup32, and Edward Lives...

...who wrote me my only four reviews last chapter! Thank you also to the much longer list of people who put MN on favourites and alerts, but if you have time, please do drop me a line! I put hours and hours and hours each week into writing and editing this fic, and reviews are like paper energy ;D So please please please, if you read the chapter, tell me! :D Even if you just say 'hah, I wrote you a review, stupid woman' :P At least then I'll know more than four people are really reading! :D This has been the hardest chapter to write yet, and there are 18 completely different versions of it sitting in my folder, so let me know if this one doesn't work, seriously :P

Thank you for reading! :D

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Chapter 5: To My Love

Once inside the house, Bella took up her usual routine of wandering. Bella's wandering was something that my mother had no doubt done when I was human—I thought I could vaguely remember it—but to me, now, it remained incomprehensible. That said, I was certainly not disinterested. Bella's wandering was the ideal opportunity to stand entirely still and watch. It was the time her mind was clearest to me. When she wandered, Bella mumbled to herself, thoughts flickering across her face—a frown, a raised eyebrow, shaking her head and laughing quietly and moving erratically from one corner of the kitchen to the other, in and out of the lounge room, over to the foot of the stairs and to the doorway and back to the kitchen table. She did this every day, after school or after work. Just…wandered, unfocused, switching between minor tasks and worries and correspondence. Esme laughed at me when I told her about it, and said that she'd done it too when life was more mundane and her mind could grasp fewer things at once. I'd never been fond of being laughed at, but I had to smile. Somehow, despite my complete lack of knowledge of women, I could just imagine it. And every day I would stand at the junction between hall and kitchen, where I could see into all three spaces, and watch Bella move about her life, unguarded.

At first, she had asked me quite often to sit down, or apologized for making me wait, or, in the very beginning, offered me a drink and then blushed furiously and mumbled something about not thinking, a reaction that tended to replace my ability to think coherently with the overwhelming desire never to let her out of my arms again. We had both grown out of that, mostly—she more successfully than I. Now, she let me stand quietly and watch her those few minutes, and I stood perfectly still and catalogued each thought shifting across her face, preserved for as long as she lived in my flawless memory.

Today she was nervous, distracted, and gave up on her wandering after several minutes of walking sharply from point to point, getting very little done.

"So, shall we watch this movie?" she called, caught half way between turning to me and walking into the lounge room. Clearly, the stress had returned.

I tried to look my most calm and unconcerning. "With you, I would love to," I replied carefully, choosing my words with greater forethought than in the car. She rolled her eyes, as was usual, and, as usual, I didn't mind. If I could not be shameless about telling Bella how I loved her, I had little hope for anything else. Bella ignored me as she moved over to the television and I watched her as I lay out on the couch, almost at peace despite myself. Bella was having a terrible birthday, her mood from this morning appeared to be resurfacing, and I had no place being happy. But I loved watching movies with Bella. I'd seen almost all of them before, but here, again, she was almost unguarded, emotions plain on her face. Sometimes, she would cry, and it was much better than the rain. And she would lie in my arms through the whole film if Charlie was out, lean against my chest with my arms around her and her hands covering mine. I could feel her tense when she was scared and hold her breath, relax and tremble and curl up and stretch out.

Bella liked Romeo and Juliet a great deal. We had watched it more times than any normal human of average life span could consider reasonable, not to mention reciting the play in full to each other one night in July. This version, the 1968, we had not seen since the day after that night, and while I doubted that most people watched it more than once, Bella seemed to consider this far too great an interval between viewings.

Personally, I was somewhat tired of the play, though not of watching it with Bella. Few of the characters appealed to me. The friar was an idiot. Benvolio was pathetic. The nurse, while commendable for her common sense, lost too much of her character to comic relief to save her charge from the plot. Juliet was tolerable, apart from her appalling taste in men, but hardly exceptional. And Romeo I found detestable. I knew the play better than most, and still I failed to see the appeal in a romantic hero so fickle that he couldn't keep straight who was the 'love of his life' for the length of a story spanning four days. Bella, on the other hand, loved Romeo. Also Juliet, Benvolio, the nurse, the servants, the soldiers, and anyone else (excluding Tybalt) who said more than a few words. Even Paris, whom she admitted was somewhat flat as a character, she refused to reject entirely. I had never felt it necessary to express my opinions on the 'great work'. I had little experience with women, but more than enough common sense to realise that one did not please one's partner by criticizing her interests.

Bella pressed fast-forward through the opening credits, grinning and sighing happily as Leonard Whiting's name flashed fast motion on the screen for Romeo. I tried not to scowl at the television. It was not rational, I understood, to be jealous of a fictional character, particularly one significantly older than even I (though, like me, eternally seventeen…or thereabouts). But…it was Romeo. I could not stand Romeo. Bella pulled herself to her feet and walked backward to the couch, eyes on the screen. I focused on whether or not she was going to fall over walking backward and hoped it made me look less like a jealous lunatic.

As usual, Bella perched on the very edge of the couch and, as usual, I pulled her back to sit with me. Six months ago I would have read the gesture as a thoroughly reasonable desire not to touch me, because she was cold, or because sitting against me was like sitting against a concrete wall, only harder and colder and with more corners…or because I was a blood-drinking monster and she was the most unbearably, inhumanly tempting possibility I had ever stumbled into. For some time now, however, I had been aware that the problem was none of these – rather, Bella was afraid of imposing on me. It was at times like these that Bella's mind was truly a mystery to me. How, when I trailed her pathetically for most of the day, slept by her side at night if at all possible, and had just tried to corner her in the cab of her truck because I would rather take pleasure in her body than go inside and, as she had already expressly notified me that she wished to do, watch a film…I closed my eyes momentarily and took a calming breath. How Bella could possibly think that she could impose upon me was incomprehensible. And so, day after day, I did the only thing I could—I pulled her against me, and wrapped my arms around her, and tried to make it perfectly clear that I would never object to anything involving her presence in the same space as mine.

She shifted against me, trying to get comfortable, and I tried not to cringe as I tugged the throw from the back of the couch where it lived and wrapped it around her as best I could. It was miraculous that she did not mind my coldness, but it did not change the fact. Some days I tried to wrap her up entirely, hoping that I might feel less hard, less freezing with a blanket between us. Bella generally objected to this, probably because it made it impossible for her to move. I wasn't going to risk upsetting her to day.

Bella safely in my arms and protected as much as possible from their effect, I settled down to watch her watch her favourite story. The second I glanced at the screen, the annoyance returned. My angel sighed softly, whole body relaxing and warming at Romeo's first lines, and the surge of jealousy I felt, the intensity of it, still surprised me. I wrapped my arms more tightly around her waist. "You know, I've never had much patience with Romeo," I muttered as she sighed happily once more. I was aware that I was being somewhat childish. I didn't overly care. Bella turned her head to glare at me. "What's wrong with Romeo?" She sounded indignant. She sounded like she did when I kept her out late and she defended me to her father. The jealousy surged. This was not fair. She was not allowed to glare at _me_ for _Romeo_'s sake. Bella was _mine_. My futile attempt to push down the puerile emotions failed miserably. I was a rational adult, for God's sake. I tried to defend myself reasonably. "Well, first of all," I began, "he's in love with this Rosaline—don't you think it makes him seem a little fickle?" How a world full of Romeo fans failed to see this was incomprehensible to me. Bella, of course, had no desire to see it. I gave up and moved on. "And then, a few minutes after their wedding, he kills Juliet's cousin." I paused. Bella seemed unfazed. "That's not very brilliant," I pointed out, unsure whether she was understanding my argument. At last, Bella's lips turned up in the echo of a smile. I couldn't help but feel a little smug. "Mistake after mistake," I continued, trying hard not to grin—that really would have been childish. "Could he have destroyed his happiness any more thoroughly?"

Bella sighed dramatically, but the way she rolled her eyes, patient and understanding and wonderful, made me feel…I almost rolled my eyes myself. Seventeen.

"Do you want me to watch this alone?" she scolded, eyebrows raised, lips pursed. I resisted the urge to reach out and touch them. I couldn't take my eyes off her. "No," I murmured, thoroughly distracted, though she already knew the answer. "I'll mostly be watching you anyway." This she most likely also knew, after sixteen afternoons, evenings and mornings in six months spent watching versions of the same film. Her skin was warm and soft and shivering slightly beneath my fingertips. Her eyes, though…her eyes had me. I breathed in as she breathed out. "Will you cry?"

She blushed, lips pursing again. "Probably." She shifted very slightly, the blanket falling from her shoulders. Ignored, Romeo let out a particularly audible cry of hopelessness (about _Rosaline_). Bella blushed again. "If I'm paying attention."

She turned back to the film, face still burning, heat radiating into me in waves of bliss. I watched the red slowly retreat, and knew just how her skin would look, and her eyes, her eyelashes, the way she bit her lip and the taste of salt when she cried tears that didn't stem from me. On screen, words jumbled past and love was a joke. "I won't distract you then," I murmured, somewhat belatedly. I touched my lips to her hair and imagined I could taste it.

By the time Romeo began speaking to Juliet, I had realised that with my jealousy as out of control as it was this afternoon, I was going to have to replace my 'criticise Bella's favourite character and annoy her' strategy with something less idiotic. Luckily, I had experience with this. Bella's interest in Romeo was not, after all, a recent development. As the famous sonnet—referred to in recent years as the fish tank scene thanks to a bizarre if enjoyable film adaptation by someone who clearly found Romeo's idiocy as laughable as I did—began, I leaned to whisper in Bella's ear. I made sure that my voice was far more audible to Bella than that of 'Romeo'. Her hands pressed into mine as I murmured the hackneyed lines, and she shifted what I was sure was happily and made a 'mmm' sound through her lips that would have made continuing impossible if I didn't know the play well enough to operate on autopilot.

"O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do…" My lips brushed against her ear, and her hands gripped mine tighter, and I could see from this angle the way she licked her lips unconsciously, and she was the most beautiful creature on the planet. I still hated the lines. It was a horrible sonnet. Here's Juliet, young, virtuous and pure and apparently attempting to be reasonable. Romeo asks to kiss her hand, a reasonable enough request, but Juliet, obviously feeling otherwise, gently suggests that she'd rather he didn't. And Romeo, the great romantic hero, gallantly responds by ignoring her protests and telling her to stay still so he can kiss her. On the mouth, no less, by the end of the sonnet. Having spoken sixty-seven words to her, and heard less than that of her voice. With no knowledge of her character. Purely because he's seen her across the room and decided he likes the look of her. Bella turned her head back toward me as, on screen, two actors who would always remain that age to Bella shared a kiss that looked nothing like they'd just met. I ignored them as I pressed my lips to Bella's. Romeo was despicable. Bella was definitely not.

By half-way through the film Bella had taken to prodding my arm when Romeo was about to enter. It made me smile, though surely she realised that I knew the film by heart. It was not until the final lines, however, that I felt any of Bella's sympathy for Romeo. I expected it, naturally. Every time was the same. Yet today…I shook my head, wishing I could banish that thought. Today meant nothing. Bella was eighteen, and many, many years from death. Yet… "I still will stay with thee," I whispered, and I meant it, I meant it so truly. She was crying now, almost. She blinked furiously, and curled up in my arms, soft and warm and so very, very beautiful. "Here will I set up my everlasting rest," I murmured, though rest was lost to me forever, and everlasting rest was the one place that I would never, never be able to follow Bella, however truly, however honestly I longed to.

World-wearied flesh. Flesh that could never be flesh again, and arms that would take their last embrace and follow no longer. Love that would, despite anything and everything, lose Bella in time, and be left behind to blow on the wind as cursed, undead ashes. "O true apothecary," I spoke, genuinely trying not to sound bitter, thankful Bella was now crying enough not to notice. "Thy drugs are quick." I could have laughed. "Thus with a kiss, I die." I could almost taste the irony. Been there. Done that. Still here eighty-seven years later. Won't be so easy next time. Bella turned to me then, eyes shining, just for a moment—checking that I was, indeed, still as undead as ever?—and I quickly composed my face. The bitterness stung and wouldn't leave my mouth. I shouldn't say anything. I knew that. The distant prospect of her death was hardly an ideal piece of birthday conversation. But I needed her. I needed her to understand. I needed her to be here with me. I needed her to not feel bitter. I needed…I struggled with my mind. Calm. I brushed at the tears. I tasted them from my fingertips and it distracted me, a little. Salt. Water. Bella.

My lips brushed hers, and my mouth flooded with venom, like every day, every night, every moment. I tried not to laugh at the horror of it, then just tried not to sound too hysterical. Perhaps today was wearing on me too. On screen, Romeo drank poison, and here in Bella's living room, I kissed her and only wanted to drink her blood. The irony was brilliant. Hilarious. Thus with a kiss I die. Again, and again, and again.

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A/N: If Edward seems a little hysterical at the end there ('cause I think he does :P), keep in mind that he's about to start a conversation about how sad he is that he can't kill himself easily :S Silly slightly hysterical Edward :P (I know that it should be a part of this chapter. I just couldn't get it done in time :-( Sorry!) Hope you enjoyed the chapter! :D Please review ;D


	7. Chapter 6: Death and Rebirth

A/N: K, more apologies guys – I literally fell asleep on my keyboard last night finishing the final edit for this, thus its being even later than I said it would be, lol. Thankfully my computer was unharmed (though you should see the keyboard pattern indented in my face ;D), so now that I have woken up, pried myself from the keyboard and finished the edit, here is chapter 6! :D Thank you very very much for the wonderful reviews I received yesterday offering encouragement for finishing the chapter. They kept me awake for at least an extra hour last night ;D You guys are legends :)

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Chapter 6: Death and Rebirth

"Romeo!" The hero was dead and as the idiotic friar surveyed the bloody scene, I tried to push down the cracked laughter into which my apparent madness had degenerated. Bella didn't appear to have noticed that I was acting like a lunatic—she was crying in earnest now, anticipating the moment when Juliet would awake. "Where is my Romeo?" the wilted-looking actress asked, sitting up, and Bella sobbed loudly. I couldn't concentrate. My mind felt like it had split in two. One part, the sane part, still appeared to be capable of reason and was urgently pointing out to me that I needed to look after Bella. That meant getting a grip, shutting my mouth and _not_ relying on Bella to share _my_ burden. I knew that. The sane part of me knew that. The other part had apparently lost it somewhere back in 'I will stay with thee' and was quickly gaining ground. _Death is not a birthday conversation_, I tried to tell myself, but death was a birthday conversation for us, and there was no escaping it. What did a birthday, a real, ageing birthday mean but that in seventy years or thereabouts Bella was going to die, Bella was going to disappear altogether from my part of the universe and I was going to be left unable to follow her? And what in God's name was I meant to do then? Oh to have it as easy as poor, martyred Romeo. I couldn't die. There was no hope, no shred of untried possibility, because Carlisle had tried every method known to man three-hundred and forty years ago and quite determined that suicide would never be an option of escape for us. No, Bella would leave, and that would be it. I'd be left. My head ached, and I knew that wasn't possible because my body didn't suffer that kind of pain, but for once my mind simply could not handle itself. I tried to force it down. This was ridiculous. Bella was right here, with me, safe and warm and very much alive. She was in no danger.

I focused on my breathing, slowed my thoughts. When the time came, many, many years in the future, I had a plan. Everything would be fine. Suicide may not be an option, but we had killed a vampire only in March, so death clearly was. Death or…_You don't know that_, the panic whispered. I knew it was true. I knew nothing of death, as ironic as that was. All I knew was that burned to ashes, the body was too broken down to sustain any function the way that a vampire's severed limb still could. I did not know whether consciousness disappeared. It was possible that I would remain as alive as I was now, trapped as a scattered dust. It was possible. But it was something. I did have a plan. Not a very good one, and not one guaranteed success, but it _was_ a plan, and it was a long time away, so there was no need to panic.

I tried to focus back on Bella as my head resettled itself. Her eyes were veined with red, her soft cheeks damp with tears that sparkled just a little on her eyelashes. On screen, Juliet's body stilled and the two corpses lay too peacefully in their voluntary demise. I sighed as I tried and failed to get lost in the softness of Bella's hair and the overwhelming scent of her tears. "I'll admit, I do sort of envy him here." I barely felt the words come out, distracted as I was by my own unsettled mind. The sane part of my head yelled furiously at me and I ignored it. The pressure seemed just to flow out with the words. The calling, whispering feeling that Bella was by my side, the stupid notion that I was somehow less alone.

"She's very pretty," Bella noted, eyes fixed on the screen again as watchmen number one, two and three chattered. I brushed her tears away with her hair because I shouldn't taste any more of them from my fingers. It took me a moment to realise what Bella meant, and when I did, I noted with relief that my laughter finally sounded like a normal person's. I _had_ to laugh. Only Bella could be sufficiently _obtuse_ to knock me this efficiently back into reality. I was holding in my arms the most beautiful, wonderful, loving, incredible girl in the world. Wasting my valuable time with her being depressed was idiotic. I nudged her face back around to me until she met my eye.

"I don't envy him the _girl_," I laughed, blown away like I was every time I looked at her by just how lucky I was to have…this. "Just the ease of the suicide." How Bella could possibly think I would envy anyone the pathetically misguided, childish, supremely unintelligent Juliet when I had _her_…I shook my head, realising that Bella was waiting for an explanation. "You humans have it so easy!" I grimaced, maybe just a little theatrically. Damn Romeo. "All you have to do is throw down one tiny vial of plant extracts…"

"What?" Bella's eyes had widened to at least twice their normal size.

I smiled dismissively, ignoring the several corners of my mind telling me this was not an appropriate topic for the occasion. "It's something I had to think about once, and I knew from Carlisle's experience that it wouldn't be simple." Bella still looked shocked, and I wondered what had surprised her—she'd joked enough about my being bulletproof so frequently I'd almost gotten used to it, so she knew it wasn't that easy. I glossed over the details. "I'm not even sure how many ways Carlisle tried to kill himself in the beginning…after he realised what he'd become…" It was something for which I respected Carlisle immensely, but the story was not pleasant and the once I'd told it to Bella was quite enough. Carlisle had tried every avenue I'd ever be able to think of. I finally heeded the warning smashing inside my skull and located my smile once more. "And he's clearly still in excellent health."

And then I realised, what was probably several sentences too late, that Bella looked something between horrified and furious. "What are you talking about?" She spoke through gritted teeth, voice too high-pitched, and gripped my arm to pull herself too violently around to face me. I froze. It was too dangerous to move with Bella agitated. "What do you mean, this is something you had to think about once?" Her voice had become alarmingly low, and her tone sent me dangerously back toward my own panic. I struggled to anchor myself, pushing away the hysteria and the thoughts that came with it. I made myself focus on answering Bella's question. Though I had considered the problem a little beforehand, I knew exactly when I had made my plans. "Last spring, when you were…" _being mauled to death by a sadistic monster because I stupidly put you in danger then completely and utterly failed to protect you_ "…nearly killed," I forced out, struggling to find the smile that I'd managed a minute ago. "Of course I was trying to focus on finding you alive, but part of my mind was making contingency plans." And part of it just lost it completely. I shook my head, searching for an end to the conversation. I wasn't doing well with this. "Like I said," I picked up, "it's not as easy for me as it is for a human."

Bella, however, didn't seem satisfied. While I did my best to smile and glanced hopefully at the movie, now rolling uselessly through credits, Bella just stared. I wished I knew what she was looking at…or—I frowned at the distance in her eyes—what she was seeing. I was about to ask whether she was okay when she shook her head suddenly—for a moment, it was eerily as though _she_ could read _my_ thoughts—and her eyes narrowed in a way that put me instantly on guard. "Contingency plans?"

I shrugged what I hoped was casually, wishing I could be more calm about this, and knowing I couldn't be. I hated that I was this weak. I was bad at being calm about last spring on any occasion, and this afternoon my composure seemed to be at its worst. The conversation was wearing on me. I wasn't annoyed at Bella for pushing the point—she was the one who'd suffered so horribly and I deserved every bit of discomfort I got. But I dearly wished I'd never opened the topic. I shrugged again, trying in vain to clear my head. "Well, I wasn't going to live without you." That much was obvious. I shut my eyes a moment, shuffling my thoughts into a vaguely coherent order. "But I wasn't sure how to _do_ it—I knew Emmett and Jasper would never help…" and they still wouldn't "…so I was thinking maybe I would go to Italy and do something to provoke the Volturi." By maybe, of course, I meant that it was the only option I could find, but such a poor one I wished it wasn't. Causing havoc amongst the usually oblivious humans of Volterra, dooming innocents to die for what they would see, would hardly be an appropriate way to remember Bella. Something sharp burst in my chest and I pushed that thought firmly aside. I forced in a breath. Bella didn't need remembering. She was here, alive, in my arms. But it was still there, hanging over me. Even the other lives that could be lost aside, it all still came back to the same answerless question—was our 'death' any kind of death at all? Was it truly possible for our consciousness to end? Was I doomed to end up voiceless, ash in the air, crushing in the dust, eternally unable to escape my agony? I probably deserved it.

Bella's voice broke through my vision. "What is a _Volturi_?"

An odd view of the world, taken through the eyes of a shifting, dissipated cloud of smoke still hung in my mind. I reminded myself that I'd been asked a question. "The Volturi are…a family," I approximated. I couldn't help but wonder whether as a cloud of smoke and ash, I'd still have to hear thoughts. "A very old, very powerful family of our kind," I continued, preoccupied. "They are the closest thing our world has to a royal family, I suppose. Carlisle lived with them briefly in his early years, in Italy, before he settled in America—do you remember the story?"

Bella nodded with what I half-registered was an unusually vehement scowl. "Of course I remember."

I supposed I would still hear thoughts—that power was seated in my mind, after all, and not in my physical body. That made me reassess the idea of the vision, however—smoke and ash had no sense of sight, so perhaps I would not have that odd view of the world. Perhaps there'd just be darkness, and five miles of thoughts, and my own sense of loss. The small part of my mind focused on the conversation reminded me that it was still going. "Anyway," I resumed, "you don't irritate the Volturi, not unless you want to die—or whatever it is we do." Turn to ash and float meaninglessly through time, contemplating all one's mistakes. It would be like a kind of purgatory, I supposed—an eternal recompense for my sins. Appropriate.

And then, suddenly, I was knocked abruptly back to reality by the burn of venom in my throat, in my mouth, on my teeth. Bella's hands gripped my cheeks and my head swam with the warmth of it. It felt so astonishingly _good_ and so equally excruciating that it took me a moment to realise Bella was glaring, an inch from my face. "You must never, never, never think of anything like that again!" I blinked, still torn between the warmth on my skin and the sound of her voice. "No matter what might ever happen to me, you are _not allowed_ to hurt yourself!"

For a long moment, I stared, bewildered. Bella looked furious, and I didn't understand why. Bella looked furious and…something like terrified. The need to comfort my angel kicked in with a shock of suddenness, and it took that to finally grasp the problem—Bella didn't want me to die. I blinked again. How could it matter once she's…I gritted my teeth, pushed the thought away for the thousandth time today and struggled to focus. I was in no state to form a reasonable response to Bella's rare anger. I was in no state to make sense of anything. But I needed to reassure my angel, and discussing my plans for seventy years' time was clearly not doing that. So, in a dubious stroke of brilliance, I pushed 'seventy years' time' aside and focused on the present. My voice was perfectly calm. "I'll never put you in danger again, so it's a moot point." It felt sickeningly like a lie—it was a lie—but if it made Bella happy…I sighed and Bella yelled and my head swam. It was still a lie. It was a lie that I would never put her in danger again, because I was putting her in danger this very moment, and I was putting her in even more danger by taking her to my house tonight. It was a lie that I would never put her in danger again because she would be in danger every moment she stayed with me, and even if she left me—the familiar feeling of hollow triumph, of hoping for the one thing that might kill me—even if she left me, as long as she lived and as long as I existed, just my knowing of her existence put her in danger. Meeting me had been the worst thing that had ever happened to her. The day I first saw her was the unluckiest of her life. It made me feel ill. Bella was raging, and I realised I'd missed most of it. "How dare you even think like that?" she hissed, furious, fingers digging into my cheeks and feeling like they might melt them.

Behind her, the last chords of the credits music finally wound up, and the production studio rolled on and off the screen. The irony was inescapable and though I knew it was stupid, it hurt. Bella loved Romeo and Juliet with an almost unreasonable passion. It was fine for Romeo to kill himself for love. Yet she had clearly never considered that I would do so. Romeo and Juliet knew each other three days. I had made her my entire life, and yet it had never occurred to her that I would die with her? Did she still not believe I loved her? Did she think me less capable of love than Shakespeare's idiot? I couldn't believe it. What would she have me do? I set my jaw and refused to get angry, however stupidly defensive and hopelessly inadequate I felt, because I knew Bella would think I was angry with her. I calmed my voice. "What would you do, if the situation were reversed?" I deliberately avoided 'if you were me'. I was having enough trouble in this conversation without inviting my favourite irresolvable argument.

"That's not the same thing," she mumbled after a pronounced silence.

But I was sure she got my point. She knew she was being irrational. The success calmed me a little and I couldn't help but chuckle quietly at her expression, trying not to pout and failing miserably and succeeding only in looking even more adorable. Marginally less frantic, I considered the argument—I could hardly object to her not wanting me to die, so long as she realised that without her there would simply be no _point_ in living. It was only natural. I was here for her, she was my whole life, and once she was gone neither of us had any reason for me to live.

Bella was still glaring at me, hard, though she'd released her death grip on my face. "What if something did happen to you?" There was a strange note of defiance in her voice that scared me. "Would you want me to go _off_ myself?"

My breath caught in my throat. No. No. I wondered whether it was possible for one's heart to stop when one didn't _have_ a functioning heart. Surely she could see that that was different? Surely she realised that was a completely different thing? I was already damned! She was…and I was…I struggled to remain clam, forcing myself to focus on Bella's face. I could argue, but arguing would be a bad idea. Bella was stubborn, and arguing would only convince her to stick to her point. And the…the unimaginable idea…the…this was not a suggestion that I wanted Bella arguing. This wasn't a suggestion that I ever wanted her to think of again. The seconds were ticked by, and I needed a response. She wasn't actually suggesting it, I reminded myself. She was using it as an example. She was, in fact, arguing that killing oneself is bad. Just agree with her. Forget my case. I nodded slowly, breathing deliberately. "I guess I see your point…a little." But…it _was _different. She had a life. I was already dead. She was all there was for me. "But what would I do without you?"

She shook her head impatiently, frowning. "Whatever you were doing before I came along and complicated your existence."

My head was still thick and painful in that way that it shouldn't be able to feel. _Complicated my existence_…but I couldn't remember _what_ I'd done before Bella had come into my world. She was my sun, my moon, my stars and everything in between. She was my breath. She was the blood that kept both of us alive, where I no longer had life of my own. She was my speaking and acting and thinking. Everything was for her. Existing was for her. Just keeping going without her…I sighed deeply, suddenly far too tired, of the day, of the inescapable knowledge, of the arguments…of being so horribly inadequate for Bella. "You make that sound so easy," I murmured, knowing it was impossible in a way she probably couldn't even grasp, or wouldn't.

"It should be. I'm not really that interesting."

I opened my mouth to argue—would nothing I did make her see how extraordinary she was?—but it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth arguing. It wasn't in Bella's nature to change her mind, certainly not on the topic of her own exceptional value, her own infinite worth. I didn't want to argue with her anymore. For once, I wished everything could just be easy. The way it would be if I were anyone else. Anyone human. I shook my head, killing the argument. "Moot point." It was a convenient end, if still painfully untrue.

_Now _this _was a good idea_, Charlie congratulated himself as he pulled up the street. I gave myself a moment to focus, with only a little dread, on his 'good idea'. _Mm. Smells great. Yum. I wonder if Bella's taken any photos yet? Renee'll probably call me tonight…I'll have to bring the phone into the tv…_

At that point I smelled the pizza—the good idea—as he pulled into the drive. Fears allayed, I set about avoiding trouble. I shifted Bella reluctantly out of my lap, feeling the chill as her hands lifted from their place on my chest.

"Charlie?" she guessed correctly.

I smiled affirmation, letting her know I didn't mind. Irrational paternal protectiveness—irrational because he was worried about my being Bella's partner, and not about my being a blood-crazed monster—was the major disadvantage of Bella's being genuinely seventeen—eighteen, I corrected myself—and having actual parents. Bella worried about her father a great deal, and I did my best to be inoffensive. She also felt the need to constantly apologise for her father. I didn't see why, when he was hardly her fault. My train of thought was abruptly broken as her hand touched mine and my whole body startled. I had always suspected that Bella would be the kind of person I didn't 'get used to', that it would probably always be a shock of pleasure when she touched me, when she smiled, when she entered the room. I had not, perhaps, anticipated how _much_ that would always be the case. The warmth pulsing into my hand, the softness of her skin, the act of her reaching out to touch me…it made my head spin.

_Hmm…Edward's car's not here…would've thought he'd keep Bella company…what kind of a boy leaves her alone on her birthday…damn thoughtless kid…_

My name caught my attention as Charlie stepped onto the porch and I was glad I'd caught the thought—it was nice to hear him angry that I _wasn't_ here for once. For some time after March, Charlie had been reluctant to even let me in the house. Any opportunity to reverse this was a good thing…particularly as I in fact _was_ here, just without my car, and he wouldn't have to stay angry long.

I heard Charlie struggle with his keys one-handed, heard in his mind him realise that the door was probably unlocked, heard him having unusual difficulty balancing the pizza in one hand while opening the door with the other. Bella remained firmly seated. The door opened at last, but Bella didn't call out. I raised an eyebrow. That meant she was waiting for her father to look in here, which meant…I looked down at our joined hands and had to smile. I was all for keeping Charlie happy if that was what Bella wanted, but the idea that Bella wanted to remind her father who she had chosen…I grinned as the venerable Chief Swan appeared in the doorframe, pizza box in hands.

He blinked at me, and I could have seen his thoughts on his face even if I hadn't heard them. Charlie's thoughts were rarely very complicated—his motives in all things came down to Bella and to Renee, or, these being equal, to his job, his compassion and his sense of justice. This made his mind relatively simple to comprehend. Currently, his thoughts were stuttering. _Oh. He _is_ here…and he's…they're…well…she _is_ eighteen…you can't…but…hmph._

"Hey, kids," he grinned at Bella, hiding his disgruntlement and surprise remarkably well. He didn't so much as look at me, let alone smile, but at least it wasn't the glare I'd received through most of Forks' school break. He turned back into the hall and crossed to the kitchen, talking loudly enough for Bella to hear as we stood up. "I thought you'd like a break from cooking and washing dishes for your birthday. Hungry?"

I dropped back to let Bella enter the kitchen before me. "Sure." She glanced back at me to roll her eyes with the same fondness she always reserved for her father. "Thanks, Dad."

I sat quietly as Charlie and Bella ate and chatted minimally and enjoyed the companionable silence. The pizza smelled garlic-y and rich and of cheese and the spicy smell of pepper. I could pick the scent of each ingredient, if I wanted to. I knew I would once have found the smell appealing—now I knew it would taste like dirt, and had no compelling reason to eat something I would have to spend difficult minutes, possibly longer, attempting to cough out of my system later on. I wondered occasionally that Charlie didn't question my never eating—he thought about it when I sat with them for dinner, but he didn't say anything and he didn't wonder, just frowned and considered it another reason that I was wrong for Bella. Ironically, I had to agree. My diet certainly _was_ a rather significant issue in our relationship. Unlike me, however, Charlie dismissed my problem easily. We'd spun him a somewhat trite excuse some months ago, and he still remembered it enough to vaguely attribute my problems to bad allergies to half a dozen basic food groups. Esme had easily confirmed at some point the time she apparently spent preparing special meals for my vulnerable digestive system—I had rarely had so much trouble keeping a straight face—and Charlie had never questioned it again. It all seemed too easy. I shrugged to myself and returned to watching Bella.

Bella seemed to enjoy the food. She never ate a great deal, but she took pleasure in food she liked. I watched her chew, I watched her throat move as she swallowed, I watched the way she tried to hold the pizza by the crust and the base so that she didn't get food on her hands. I watched how she took small bites and chewed each one about twenty-five times before swallowing. I watched the way that tomato stuck to her lips, and the way her lips parted and her tongue darted out to lick them clean. I glanced away before it became obvious that I was staring at Bella's mouth, and tried not to lick my lips myself. I watched the way she knew I was watching and let me, and the way she didn't look at me because her father was here. I watched the way she blushed and shot me a sidelong glare, barely even really reproachful, the moment her father looked down to the pizza box. I grinned.

By the time the pizza was finished and Bella was crushing the box into the trash, I was convinced the day was taking a turn for the better. The party itself had been entirely Alice's responsibility—aside from my present, I'd had almost nothing to do with it. But I had been entrusted with getting Bella there for the night, and that meant getting her away from Charlie. I was aware that this was not an entirely reasonable request. Charlie was Bella's only family here, and for once I could hardly blame him if he tried to claim the evening. My family had even discussed the possibility that we might have to invite Charlie to the small party—there was surely a chance, after all, that when we told him we were going to a family party for Bella he might think it appropriate that he be present. There would be no polite way to say no if that were to happen. And so we had agreed that Charlie could come to the house, if it were unavoidable. I, however, ardently wished to avoid this if possible. My family had little trouble behaving like humans, though naturally we enjoyed what time we could spend without the pretence. The house was mostly unsuspicious-looking, and if I called Esme she could make the kitchen look like it was in use before we arrived. Bella, however, was a different person alone with us. She had far less practice than the rest of us at hiding, at lying, and I hated that I made her do it. She had gotten used to having me in the house with Charlie, and Alice, and had even begun to relax when I watched them eat. But that had taken months…and I knew how the evening would progress if we brought Charlie along tonight. Bella would become more and more stressed, would object to everything more vehemently, would vacillate between worry that her father would think we weren't eating enough, and misplaced guilt at my family pretending to eat…and after a nightmarish party, would hurry us out the door at the earliest possible opportunity. Alice would be difficult. Rosalie would be smug. Emmett would be disappointed. And Bella would be miserable.

_I wonder if the boy's taking Bella anywhere…guess not. I hope they don't want the tv…what if Bella wants to do something with me? I don't know how Renee did birthdays…_

I grinned as Bella dried the last of the dishes. Finally, something was going right. "Do you mind if I borrow Bella for the evening?" I spoke up as Charlie contemplated his responsibilities as a father.

The look Bella gave her father made quite clear her thoughts on the party—apparently I had not yet managed to sell the evening's benefits. Then again, I'd never really had much hope. Thankfully, Bella had similarly little hope of her father catching on.

"That's fine—" he sighed audibly in relief "—the Mariners are playing the Sox tonight. So I won't be any kind of company…"

His thoughts were already on the game, and I reflected with satisfaction that effectively rescuing him like this might just take me back to the relative esteem in which I had been held before March's nightmare. It would be a great relief to Bella if her father could move past his grudge against me. And it would make my life infinitely easier.

"Here," he called to Bella, and I saw his intentions a moment too late to stop him. Bella cried out and blushed furiously as she missed the tossed camera by inches. I reached across her and plucked it out of the air, letting it fall a little further to avoid looking too suspicious. I was careful not to crush it. Bella blushed again as I sat back in my own seat, Charlie sufficiently distracted by the near demise of the camera not to realise that I was reaching across his only daughter's body to catch it. I noticed. It was hard not to—there was, after all, something close to 27 degrees Celsius difference between her body temperature and mine. Twenty-seven degrees and a fire in my throat. I ignored both and sat back up.

"Nice save," Charlie chuckled as Bella stared determinedly at her lap, and I forced my focus back to him. "If they're doing something at the Cullens' tonight, Bella, you should take some pictures." He pointed at the camera, still balanced between my fingertips where I'd be less likely to accidentally break it, for emphasis. Bella was frowning. I doubted I'd get her to take any photos—she'd be embarrassed by the very existence of the set up Alice was planning. Evidence might be pushing my luck. Bella hated photos of herself. Charlie was having remarkably similar thoughts to mine. "You know how your mother gets," he reasoned, half to convince Bella and half because he was genuinely worried about upsetting Renee. After eighteen years he was still very much in love with his ex-wife, and it was one of the things that I admired most about Bella's father. "She'll be wanting to see the pictures faster than you can take them."

I handed the camera to Bella before she could think of an excuse. "Good idea, Charlie," I added, and grinned when his muted approval registered in scattered thoughts.

And then Bella turned the camera on me. I knew what the shutter would capture—I could see my reflection in the lens. Eyes widened slightly in surprise, grin left over from the success of Charlie's thoughts and…something else. The part of me I barely knew. The impossible part of me, the part that confused me and tore my mind in two. The part of me that I only saw with Bella. The something that made my eyes widen when I glanced in Bella's mirror, saw my reflection in a window, felt my family's eyes on me and knew that something was different. The something that sparked when Bella walked into a room, and stayed burning for hours after I'd seen her. The part of me that made Esme and, more quietly, Carlisle, so happy.

Something almost alive. The life I borrowed from my angel.

We were usually very careful to avoid photos—Esme sometimes took her own, but to be captured in those of others was too dangerous. While most photos disappeared quickly, were lost and faded and decayed away, we were very aware that most was not all. Old photos were constantly being found; photos filled up museums and cultural centres and historical sites, were uncovered in old cupboards, passed down from parent to child, stuck between the pages of books or archived or sent to friends. Some photos lasted. And while it would not be inescapable, it would be undesirable if someone in one-hundred years' time were to look into a photo and see me, no different than I appeared standing next to him in the flesh. A remarkably similar ancestor, we would reason, and laugh. And a week later Carlisle would be offered a contract he could not refuse across the country and we would disappear. It would not bother the photo's owner for more than a few days. But we avoided photos nonetheless. I felt no need to be reminded of my inability to change.

Bella stared speculatively at the camera and I wished I could know what was going through her mind. Photos, particularly of myself, were not something I would usually treasure. Still…I would like a copy of this photo. I would like to look at that spark in the hours I couldn't spend with Bella and feel that rush and that burn and imagine that light. I would like to see this photo when I could not have Bella by my side and know, like I knew right now, that Bella had made me the luckiest man ever to have lived, to have died and to have been born again.

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A/N: Haha, so, having just woken up and finished this as best I can, I'd like to apologise for A. the horrendously repetitive sentence structures, which I am not nearly awake enough to fix :P and B. any typos, incoherence or other mess that I've missed – this chapter took a really, really long time to write (it was probably harder than the last one), thus last minute middle-of-night editing, thus missed errors. Please let me know if you notice spelling/grammar/character/anything else mistakes! :D I massively appreciate it :) Edward sends love and hugs to all! ;) And as always, please review :) Your reviews make me very happy ;)

Thank you to Sassy Ani, wontgrowsup32, chalkoutlines, bookworm.amm, Debussy-This, twilightguitargirl, EdwardsKitten and Sakiru Yume for their awesome reviews last week, and to fastpitchrulez93, Sakiru Yume, 1800ILoveIt, freshlyminted and Callie Noelle for their reviews yesterday. You guys are all awesome, and if I haven't replied to you yet, I will as soon as I have ten seconds ;D Thanks also to those who favourite-d MN or put it on Story Alert. Your support is appreciated muchly :)

(This chapter will be edited again at some point, but right now my little brother needs me as a taxi service :P Hope it's okay as is! ;D)


	8. Chapter 7: Significance

A/N: And we return to normal scheduling ;D Sorry 'bout last week, hope you enjoy, and please review!

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Chapter 7: Significance

I breathed a mental sigh of relief as Charlie said his brief goodbyes. He backed what I dearly hoped wasn't meant to be subtly toward the living room, Bella already forgotten in the face of baseball. This was going better than expected. Bella was still firmly in her seat, glaring mournfully in her father's general direction. Better. Not necessarily well. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that she was sure to enjoy at least some of the party once she was there. It was becoming harder and harder to believe. Her hand was concealed under the table with as much subtlety as her father's shuffling, and I pried it from her knees as carefully as I could. She was making perfectly clear to me that she did not wish to leave the house, but there was very little alternative. If she stayed here Bella would be miserable, Alice would be furious, Alice would come here and make Bella feel guilty and Bella would end up at the party anyway, but would have a terrible time. I hoped against hope as she reluctantly uncurled her fist in my hand that Bella hadn't thought of another reason—excuse—to stay home. I didn't have it in me to argue properly tonight. But her shoulders sagged as her fingers laced with mine, soft and burning as ever, and I pulled what I hoped was gently on her hand as I stood. That she followed willingly I thanked God for, and counted it firmly a miracle. I didn't push my luck by speaking. It was hard to tell whether she was angry at me. I wondered briefly whether if she were, she would wish her hand were cold and didn't comfort me so. _She always wishes her hands were cold_, the stupid voice of misery chimed in helpfully from the corner of my head. I felt like telling it that was an incredibly cheap call, but resisted. Talking to one's own voices of reason is never a good thing.

It was already dark outside; trees in shades of brown instead of green, earth in shades of grey, wind rippling moonlight and stars burning different shades of heat in my eyes. I kept Bella's hand as I opened the door and she shut it behind us. I had always been taught in my youth to allow a lady first through a doorway, but caution overruled. I wondered briefly whether I was paranoid. It didn't matter. Opening the door to the cold outside, the darkness that I could see through but so could others like me…the thought of allowing Bella into that darkness without me before her was too painful to entertain. My carelessness, my thoughtlessness had seen her bitten, broken and very nearly killed. Killed or…I tried and failed to let go the tension as I dropped behind Bella to put her in my line of sight. I hated that scar on her hand more than anything but the foul monster who'd put it there. My lack of caution, my idiocy had seen her beaten and torn to pieces, horribly scarred, jumping at shadows for weeks and still afraid now, I was sure. She had been terrified. She had been hopeless. I had lost her trust, her belief in me so badly that she'd tried to sacrifice herself instead of waiting for me, and she had been left nearly dead, nearly turned, and unconscious for two whole days. I had no intention of letting that happen again.

We crossed to the truck in silence and Bella climbed into the passenger side without argument. I wasn't sure whether she was finally developing a sense of self-protection strong enough to stop her driving around blind in the dark, or whether she just realised that I was in no state of mind to let her do so. I didn't care as much as I should have. It was too easy just to be relieved at not having to fight.

The truck moved out of Bella's driveway exceedingly loudly—I smelled every creature for a mile scatter. We roared down the silent street like a monster truck with a cutlery set in its engine. I could hear house after house of families glancing up from their meals; incoherent, pre-linguistic flashes of surprise or curiosity or annoyance in mind after mind after mind. The noise the thing made was absurd. I tried to put pressure slowly on the accelerator, coax it up, maybe pull a little more power than it would usually allow…and heard only even more clattering noise and very little that sounded like a functioning engine. I could _walk_ faster than we were moving, and in far greater comfort.

"Take it easy," Bella warned as the car groaned at a mile over the speed limit. Her voice was tense and less than patient.

She admitted it! She _knew_ the car was a reinforced cardboard box on square wheels. If I had to take the damn thing easy going _at _the speed limit, it was not a working car. It was nearly as old as me, and not nearly as durable. I couldn't resist. "You know what you would love?" There were plenty of cars just as safe as the truck but with the capacity to move fast enough to be called a form of transport. I briefly weighed a few options in my mind. "A nice little Audi coupe." Bella groaned. I grinned. "Very quiet, lots of power…" Everything that this truck was _not_…

"There's nothing wrong with my truck." And it sounded depressingly like closing the topic. I shrugged to myself and tried not to sigh too loudly as the truck edged another half a mile faster and almost fell apart. This topic always sounded like it was closing. It never did. I'd convince Bella eventually. After all, this ridiculous vehicle could only last so long and when it finally gave up, Bella wouldn't have the money for a new car and I would. I considered that I should probably feel bad for thinking that, but didn't. The truck was an insult to the automotive industry—an insult to modern invention and intelligence. Really.

"And speaking of expensive nonessentials," Bella segued, and my attempts at positive thinking fell out the window at the threatening edge in her voice. I reflected wryly that Bella was probably the only person capable of really threatening me.

"If you know what's good for you," she continued, still scowling, "you didn't spend any money on birthday presents."

And here we were again. "Not a dime," I replied on cue. It was the truth, unfortunately. Bella _had_ explained to me, of course, why she objected so to receiving gifts, but it simply wasn't logical. The idea that she could ever owe me anything, after all she'd given me…but the point of gifts was to make Bella happy, or it was meant to be, and if they were only going to make her miserable then they weren't helpful or necessary. Outside the trees flashed past and Bella didn't seem to see them. She had told me once that she couldn't, that they disappeared to a blur when I drove fast. I couldn't remember ever having eyes like that. Not that we could go fast in this thing anyway.

As we passed the last structures of central Forks, I reached out with my mind to check that all was ready at home. It was, despite Alice's fussing. Rosalie was being difficult and it was worrying Esme, but that was it. Emmett was largely oblivious, and resigned to the rest. Alice was being kept moderately under control by Jasper, her flowers and candles and silver were all in place, and the house looked…festive. And being the only one not buying Bella a gift was fine. Yes, there were practical gifts I would have liked to have given Bella—a reasonable car, college fees, more adequate winter jackets, all of the above…there were hundreds of gestures I might have made for sentimentality's sake, and there were any number of things I could have bought her that might have made her happy. But I could always buy her those things some other time. What mattered today was what Bella wanted, and what Bella wanted was, miraculously, to spend this evening with me. And not to be bought gifts. I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye and put the topic away. I was confident that she would like what I was giving her. I was relying on that to turn the night back around. I would take Bella home happy tonight, she would fall asleep at peace, and I would wake her up in the morning smiling. That was what mattered.

I sighed as I wondered for the thousandth time today whether it mightn't have been a better idea to stay at Bella's place. I could give her the CD there, we could lie around and listen to music or I could watch her read or…something. I tried and failed to let the tension out of my face. Bella hated the idea of parties as a rule, and I wasn't sure why I'd allowed my family to talk me into this. That said, I had a pretty good idea. I pressed my eyes shut just a moment, too quickly for Bella to worry about us crashing. Of course I'd let them convince me. They all wanted it so badly. I knew that Alice, and Esme, and probably Carlisle and Emmet and maybe even Jasper loved Bella dearly. Even Rosalie couldn't possibly resent her as much as she claimed to. My family didn't want Bella to lose her birthday over me any more than I did. And they were excited. Alice's enthusiasm was out like it hadn't been in years. Esme was bright with anticipation, and that made Carlisle just as happy. Jasper was swanning around the house all but grinning from the secondary effects of being an empath near Alice ecstatic. I didn't need to check to know that Emmett would be giving him hell for it right now. The thought made me smile. Emmett and Rosalie were home for the evening. The house was almost alive with the light of a genuine celebration, an actual event, something significant to smile about. Something human. Nothing much significant happened to us anymore. We had all been turned more than seventy years, and my family had found their mates long ago. The last major change for us had been Alice and Jasper showing up, and that was over half a century old. That was it for significance. So to have something new, to have something real…I wanted them to enjoy it too, as well as Bella. I wanted everyone to be happy, and I wanted us all to be happy together. I wanted some peace for us. They deserved it. Especially Carlisle and Esme, and Alice, stupid as she was being today. And so I had allowed myself to be convinced. And now there was at least a fifty percent chance that Bella would walk through the door and be miserable, and that would make the rest miserable, and we'd have one great disaster of a night.

I glanced sideways at Bella. It had to be worth a try. "Can you do me a favour?"

She pursed her lips, and I resisted the urge to sigh. This day was so much more difficult than it should be.

"That depends on what it is."

I closed my eyes a moment to compose my thoughts…to compose myself. "Bella," I began slowly, wishing the stress were less evident in my voice, "the last real birthday any of us had was Emmett in 1935." And that had hardly been a celebration. 'Birth' was a euphemism, though there was as much screaming as a real birth. Esme barely taking her eyes from Carlisle for months, torn as he was about changing another, Rosalie so obviously lost somewhere between what she irrationally insisted was love, though she'd barely heard a word from Emmett when she had Carlisle turn him, and the decision she'd made out of nowhere…and I had been so furious, for so little coherent reason. Furious at Rosalie's impulsiveness. Furious at Carlisle's allowance of it. Furious at how we kept growing, and growing, furious that another person had been damned like us. Furious at Emmett's newborn bloodlust and more furious at my own, still recovering from the late twenties. Furious at nothing and everything, in that way that I was in the thirties. The whole thought flashed barely a moment through my mind. The last birthday. The twenties and thirties and all the horror. I shook my head. "Cut us a little slack, and don't be too difficult tonight." I was struggling with my words. Bella wasn't being _difficult_, but what was I meant to say? Magically forget for a few hours that I've made you miserable? And it was important. It was important to my family, whether it was stupid and meaningless or not. I looked more down at my knees beneath the wheel than at my Bella. "They're all very excited."

There was one long moment of silence. "Fine." She sounded a little surprised, and less resentful than she could have. "I'll behave." I squeezed my eyes together hard and opened them again. It was all going to be fine. I needed to relax. There was nothing wrong.

But I couldn't. I sighed heavily, completely failing to hide it. I needed to relax. But I was too sick of everything.

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A/N: So this chapter was interesting for me. I think Edward gave us some slightly different parts of himself to the ones that he normally lets show. 'Significance' summed it up for me – not just the lack of significance in changeless eternity, but also the significance of Bella and of his family to Edward, the significance of the events of March to Bella and Edward's ongoing relationship, the differing significances of Bella's birthday and how they wear on both of them, and the significance of this car ride – the last conversation before everything moves toward changing.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and please review (anything from whether or not you liked it to full on concrit is always welcome!) :D Awesome person of the week award goes to averysubtlegift, who went through and wrote me really detailed half page reviews on every chapter. Thanks to all who are reading, reviewing, and showing their support!


	9. Chapter 8: Beat

A/N: So this chapter is fairly long (as in, the longest yet); the remaining bit of the drive, etc, took longer than I expected it to and I'd promised a few of you I'd get past a certain point…though to be honest, I didn't think I was going to make it :-S Thankfully, Wednesday gave me a lovely rainy morning to write in, then a lovely rainy afternoon, and evening…and nine hours later, I had a draft, with Thursday left to edit! It's funny; I got through the initial write okay then cried everywhere editing. Ah well, all I can say is that two chapters time is going to be messy (and no, that's not 'it' :-S There's a whole 2 days of agony before that…). So here it is…attempt number two-hundred-and-I've-lost-count at the end of NM ch1 ;-D Forgive me if it gets a little…madcap :-P I'm not really happy with all of it, but I'm fairly happy with the bits that count. This stuff is _tough_, lol…I hope you enjoy it! Thanks to all those who sent their support during the week :-)

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Chapter 8: Beat

OR

Don't Breathe – The World Is Burning

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It was September 13, 2005, the fifth year of a new millennium and the one-hundred-and-fifth year of my existence. I was in a moving vehicle—a barely moving, barely functional 1953 Chevrolet truck—and I was driving. Beside me in the cab sat my entire life, my purpose, my reason for being and my undeserved redemption. Beside me sat the most beautiful girl in the world and we were heading for her birthday party—her eighteenth birthday—and she was miserable. And because of that, although I was driving to a party, although I was here with my angel, although my family was together for the first time in over a month, I was not as happy as I should have been.

Thanks to my idiocy and that of my two sisters, few of my current circumstances would bring joy to Bella. She was dreading the party—dreading it almost as much as I had made her dread her birthday itself. And because Rosalie was a child, and because I was unable to control her pettiness, Bella would lack my enthusiasm about the family being together as well. In short, the evening was everything it should not have been, and I was about to make things worse.

I opened my mouth in the brief, tired silence that had spread between us. "I probably should warn you…"

"Please do." Bella's voice held enough poorly hidden trepidation and worse, resignation to her situation to make turning the truck around a tempting prospect. I wondered bitterly why this still surprised me. I _was_ fully aware of what I was doing to her. I let the fact that the truck's turning circle would require a large meadow give me strength. "When I say they're all excited…I do mean _all_ of them."

"Everyone?" Bella choked out, breath tight, and I felt the evening going downhill at the poorly hidden terror on her face. Bella was this scared of my idiot sister? I shook my head and resisted the urge to smash something, preferably something attached to Rosalie. Well, no, some enthusiastically gutless corner of my mind provided, not everyone was _excited_. Rosalie was jealous and resentful and sufficiently depressed that she'd barely spoken. That didn't help me much, however. They _were_ all here, and I just wished I could give Bella an answer that wouldn't make this worse. I wished my seventy-two years' sister weren't here, and knew the thought was wrong and thought it anyway.

"I thought Emmett and Rosalie were in Africa," Bella managed at last, voice still strained.

She wasn't wrong—they had been until recently. Rosalie and Emmett did Africa like no reasonable person did anything. Rosalie's taste in accommodation required large cities or safari parks, but neither could be used for hunting. Even game parks monitored their herds, making midnight 'unarmed poaching' inadvisable. So Rosalie and Emmett spent a lot of time in Africa driving, and a lot of time running—dirty, smog-drenched city to wild savannah and back again, black market gems and mud and plains where humans occur every hundred miles. Sun-soaked mountains with freezing air. Wide, endless spaces and the wild, furious creatures that were the richest blood we allowed ourselves. The richest blood in the world that didn't beat for a sanctified soul.

Africa had undeniable appeal. I hadn't been there in some time. Bella was happy here, with her father and her horrendous truck and her idiotic friends, and that was enough for me. It was for Bella that the family was still here, of course. We had been in Forks a number of years now and had more than sufficient reason to move on, with all the nightmares of the past eight months. But this was Bella's home, and my family loved Bella. Emmett had proudly reported missing her as much as he had anyone else in the family—I'd ignored the accompanying thoughts, variations on a theme of family togetherness and racial uniformity that made me want to remove his limbs to distract him. Rosalie, on the other hand, was not happy about being dragged back here so soon after leaving. I would never have imagined that her thoughts could be my family's most bearable—vain as they were, self-absorbed and, currently, almost acidic. But they weren't directed at me. Rosalie didn't sit in a room and try to force her naïve opinions into my mind as though I might adopt them by accident if sufficiently harassed. Rosalie _wasn't_ naïve like Emmett was, or like Alice could be. Even Esme's mind, quiet and endlessly compassionate, unintentionally tore chunks out of me these days, softly wishing for my happiness in a way that could never be real. No, Rosalie's mind might be hateful, but it was a relief. She didn't want me to kill Bella. She knew that I was right.

"Emmett wanted to be here," I summarised for Bella's benefit, and wondered whether it was cowardly to gloss over the rest. But Bella didn't need to know the rest. She shouldn't have to. There was nothing wrong with protecting her as much as I could.

Unfortunately, I currently seemed to be doing an impressively poor job. She was biting her lip nervously, not quite forming words. "But…Rosalie?" It was painfully clear that she already knew the answer. I tried not to be too angry. At least Rosalie didn't want me to take Bella's soul. It didn't work. "I know, Bella," I sighed, wishing Rosalie would take some initiative and leave for the evening, since she clearly didn't want to be a part of the celebrations. "Don't worry, she'll be on her best behaviour." Or Alice would have her on a plane back to Africa before I had a chance to send her away myself.

Bella didn't look convinced, but she didn't question it either. I was glad—what was there to say? She stared out her window, face turned away from me, lost in thought, and I tried with as little success as ever to block out those less silent—white noise from the town, predictable whispers from my waiting family. Emmett had wasted no time once he'd returned. "So," he threw at me, bowling in the door like they'd never left—which really, in the scheme of things, they barely had—"are we here at the right time?"

_There has to be a chance. Just 'cause Alice can't convince him…well, he really does look as bad as Alice said. But he can't really—_

"The right time for what, Emmett?" I threw back mildly, daring him to say it. I knew what he meant. I knew what everyone meant. And if he was looking for me in an agreeable mood, he had not come at anything close to the right time.

"Africa's pretty great, you know. You and Bella could come back with us. Make a nice change, clean break from this whole place…"

"I don't know what you're talking about." I pushed past him toward the door before realising that Bella was at work, I had nowhere useful to go, and I would look like an idiot if I let him drive me out of the house within thirty seconds of getting here.

Rosalie gave me a look that made clear that I was weak regardless. "He's just being as much of a child as you are. Ignore him." At least she was glaring at Emmett, not me.

Emmett's eyes, and his thoughts, flickered to Rosalie for a moment, not remotely as invisibly as he intended, and the honest worry in both mystified me as much as ever. How he could love her the way he did was incomprehensible to me. How anyone could put up with Rosalie's rubbish and still feel…

_Hey, Edward. Is Bella mad at you?_

The only time Emmett bothered speaking to me in his thoughts was when he was getting around Rosalie. Right now, I was too annoyed with them all to cooperate. "Bella and I are fine," I answered curtly. Rosalie glared at him. Rosalie hated my power with a passion only she could muster, and certainly only she could maintain for seventy-two years.

Emmett nodded uncomfortably, Rosalie's eyes boring into the side of his head. "'Cause I was thinking…" _This is probably stupid_, he argued with himself mentally. He said it anyway. "It'd be useful if we did all…you and Bella's…significant…events…while Rose and I are here, don't you think? So we don't have to come back again so quickly."

Stupid was a massive understatement. I turned to the piano, realised it would only give away how frustrated I was, and turned to the window instead. "I can't think of any others you might miss, so you should be fine."

"Oh," he supplied, attempting to come up with a direction for the conversation and floundering. _Okay, I'll say…_"I was thinking maybe Bella might be joining the family this year, though. You know, eighteen's a legal adult in most countries…"

Rosalie cut him off before I had the chance to. "Actually, he wasn't thinking at all. You're taking our bags up, Emmett." Her tone left no argument. Alice, meanwhile, helpfully ran the list through her head—_drinking, smoking, voting, vampirism…_­—and didn't try very hard not to laugh. I stared hard out the window. Emmett gave me one more pitiful look before disappearing up the stairs, his thoughts clear as ever behind him.

_I don't get how he…doesn't he want her to be one of the family? He wants to marry her, doesn't he? So what does he think…if he'd just hurry up and change her…_

Change. My thoughts took hold of the word and planted it firmly before all else. Change. Change, change, change, change…

And Rosalie's thoughts beat out a steady rhythm of _I hate this, I hate this, I hate Edward, I hate that stupid girl, I hate Emmett, I hate this place, I hate this, I hate this _and her thoughts did merge into mine where the others wished theirs would, and we were as miserable as each other and the rest were little better. It was not one of our better reunions. No one was surprised.

The arguments and wheedling and waves of deliberate thought and stupid looks had continued until I was almost ready to leave the house for Bella's.

"Edward…" Emmett had whined, deliberately grating, when marginally less puerile attacks had failed. "Come on…Edward…" Until I lost it, snarling and furious, and stormed out to the porch. The rising moon mocked me. The twilight mocked me, because it had always been peaceful, and nothing was now. Inside, behind me, Rosalie smirked, infuriatingly smug but more just bitter, and I could see her face in Emmett's thoughts but hers were almost all the bitterness.

I wondered what had happened to us and hated that I knew the answer. One of the most important lessons that Carlisle had taught me was that change always holds both good and bad. It just happened that in this, all the good went to me and all the bad went to my family and to Bella.

Little had improved over the day since my adopted brother's arrival. Rosalie was still volatile. My family was still against me. And now, Bella was about to enter the madhouse. She was still facing out the window, out where I knew she couldn't see a thing. She was still turned away from me. She didn't react when I turned the truck into our private drive, and we both needed to stop mulling out windows before we reached the house. I scrambled weakly for a change of topic. "So…if you won't let me get you the Audi, isn't there anything that you'd like for your birthday?" The question felt almost as false as my voice sounded.

And, as always, Bella rewarded with me something about equivalent to a knife in the gut. "You know what I want."

I caught the roar of frustration that pushed itself into my throat, swallowed it, breathed deeply. Calm. Stay calm. I clenched my jaw shut and wished I'd kept it that way to start with. "Not tonight, Bella," I forced out, trying hard not to growl it at her. I wasn't an animal damn it, I could get control of myself this second and behave like a civilised person. "Please."

She smiled mockingly, bitterly, and the calm struggled. "Well, maybe Alice will give me what I want."

The calm smashed. It took me several seconds to rein in the instinctual reaction, the snarl of pain, of fury, of fear, the crushing fear that trailed me now, and I was too disgusted with myself to even try calming my voice. "This isn't going to be your last birthday, Bella."

"That's not fair!"

Stay calm. Stay calm. Calm. Breathe. I clamped my mouth as tightly shut as I could and turned my eyes away from her, focused on the trees, on the massive hemlocks and the smaller pines, on Alice's thoughts from the house—_Is everything okay? What did you say, Edward?_—she'd obviously heard Bella's shouting. I shut my eyes and gathered my senses. _Is everything okay, Edward?_ Esme, as much concern and less accusation than Alice. Carlisle wouldn't ask, because he'd know, and he'd know that sympathy was misplaced. I was grateful for small mercies. Carlisle and I didn't talk much about Bella. Neither of us liked any of the conclusions we refused to come to when we did. Not that it helped much. We'd been together too long to still need words. We came to conclusions together just by knowing the other was thinking.

By the time I pulled Bella's truck to a stop in front of the house, the thought of Carlisle waiting inside for us had managed to calm me as much as it could. I glanced sideways at Bella, giving her another moment to find her own calm. I regretted it immediately. Her lips were set in a hard frown, her eyes once again wide, shoulders slumped. I took another quick survey of our surroundings in case she was looking at something I'd missed. Nothing. Just the house, decorated rather simply by Alice's standards and with a soft elegance that the women of 1910s Chicago would have done well to learn from. Elaborate parties had been a weekly, twice-weekly thing when I was human. Now they happened when Rosalie wanted to get married again, and rarely otherwise. The girls of Chicago, much like my two sisters, had been intolerably enthusiastic about parties. Bella was not, ever. I glanced at her again just in time to see her groan, apparently recovering from her speechlessness. I stopped myself doing the same. I kept my voice perfectly civil. "This is a party," I stated simply, breathing out my frustration. So Bella was being a little unreasonable. It was still my fault that she was upset. I called up all my long-trained patience. "Try to be a good sport."

"Sure," she muttered, still glaring at the house.

I got out of the truck before I could make things any worse.

_Do you and Bella need a moment?_

I glanced quickly around me as I walked in front of the truck and located Carlisle a step back from the front window. Bella wasn't glaring anymore, just frowning, but a moment wasn't going to help. I shook my head imperceptibly, glancing left, then right, then left again—Alice would pick it if she was watching, and Carlisle would understand because he was waiting for an answer, but Bella wouldn't know I'd spoken to anyone. Which was good, because I suspected it would take less than that to make her angry again. I opened her door in silence and offered her my hand down.

She didn't take it. "I have a question."

I lowered my hand again, remembered that Carlisle was watching, and gripped my patience like it could fix this.

"If I develop this film, will you show up in the picture?"

For one long moment, I could do nothing but stare. And then I could hear Carlisle and Jasper laughing in the window, and I felt oddly like I wished I could cry, but I hadn't been able to in a long, long time so I laughed instead, and laughed, and laughed, and wished all the questions caught up in this were that simple, and wished that the humanity in that stupid picture were enough, and wished that I could just keep laughing and let that be it. That after all this, the myths being just that could be enough for her like it had been what seemed an age ago. And I laughed, and I laughed, and I kept on laughing as Bella's frown slowly relaxed and the tension ran out of me better than tears.

Carlisle wasn't fooled and neither, with his advantage, was Jasper. They both let me laugh anyway. _Bring her inside, Edward_, Jasper whispered in my mind, _or Alice is going to lose it_, and he was right, and it was easy, so I grabbed Bella's hand, threw thought out the window, shut the door behind her and focused on the fact that she was smiling. I pushed the rest away as we crossed the lawn. The candlelight made Bella glow, and every flame cast its own sphere of heat, rippling against my skin in an ebb and flow whisper of bliss. They were all waiting by the time I opened the door, still laughing under my breath, giddy from the heat and the laughter and the day.

"Happy birthday, Bella!"

_Welcome home, Edward_, Carlisle added silently, and though he didn't say it, I knew his tone well enough to rein in my mild case of hysteria. I didn't stop smiling. It felt good. The house looked beautiful. My family were all happy, genuinely happy, except for Rosalie, who was easy to ignore. Bella was blushing furiously, and I pulled her close and pressed my lips to her hair and wondered how I could possibly have been frustrated with her. How could anyone be frustrated with my beautiful angel, who had made my family so happy, who had lived almost eighteen years before I'd known she existed and whose side I was going to stay by for every second that remained? I released her long enough for Esme to embrace her and Carlisle to follow suit, joking, smiling, thoughts genuinely at ease like they never were. Emmett thankfully didn't hug her, because when he did I usually had to extract her half-squashed from his grip, but he smiled in that way that got him out of anything, like it was _his_ birthday and he was about eight years old, and Bella blushed again as he teased her. Alice was practically glowing as she skipped forward, and Jasper was glowing over on the stairs, cautious as ever, I noted with quick approval, but still easily close enough for Alice to be infectious.

I was too busy enjoying the general humour of my family's thoughts and watching Bella finally begin to smile properly to take much note of what was going on, until Bella shifted beneath my hand on her shoulder and I realised that Alice was towing her away, ignoring Bella's protests, thoughts dancing so quickly that I really couldn't be bothered following. I let them go. Emmett had left the room, so I knew which gift would be first. The elder and more amiable of my sisters planted the largest of the boxes firmly in Bella's hands, holding on until it was clear that Bella wasn't going to drop it. "Open it," Alice prompted, so pleased her party was going well that it was difficult not to be similarly enthused. Bella blushed yet again, ripped the paper off rather quickly for a human, and gave the box inside a very odd look. I edged around until I could see the box, wondering what could possibly be so confusing about a car stereo, and held in a laugh. No one had actually thought to write 'car stereo' on the box. Then I _did_ laugh, as Bella opened the box for further illumination, found it empty, and looked more puzzled than ever.

"Um…thanks," she mumbled quietly, cheeks burning with blood, very obviously still trying to figure out what she'd been given, and I was no longer the only person in the room laughing. Bella was now bright red, and I opened my mouth to explain before I could be scolded for embarrassing her. Jasper got in before I could. "It's a stereo for your truck," he called, still at the foot of the stairs, doing about as well at not laughing as I was. "Emmett's installing it right now so that you can't return it."

Alice grinned maniacally. I started laughing all over again.

Bella thanked Jasper and then Rosalie more graciously than I had even hoped for, and she was still smiling as she called out to Emmett at the truck. And then Emmett was laughing and Alice was still grinning like a madman, Esme was glowing and Carlisle was chuckling quietly and Jasper glanced at me for approval before coming in a few steps to join the rest of the family and Bella, Bella was smiling, blushing, laughing with the rest of us and if it had seemed impossible before, Alice really was right. Now that we were here, the party was making everything better. Just being together was enough. We were going to get through this, and everything was going to be okay.

"Open mine and Edward's next," Alice sang, and I let the anticipation get to me. Thank God Alice hadn't forced the gift on her in the car park this morning. Now, this was going to be perfect. She was happy, truly happy, like she should have been all day. She seemed to be dealing fine with receiving gifts. And she was going to love the CD—my instincts told me so, my limited ability to understand Bella told me so, and Alice had guaranteed it. All eventualities with any likelihood behind them, she said. Every single scenario where Bella opened the gift at the party came up with her liking it. Bella glared at me, but I was too relaxed to let it worry me.

"You promised," she hissed, but she didn't seem sad, just mildly infuriated and besides, I was in the right.

I waited for Emmett to finish noisily bowling into Jasper—who helpfully aimed a half-hearted blow at his face in retaliation, before being stared into submission by Alice and Esme—before replying. "I didn't spend a dime," I grinned, taking one more step forward to stand by her.

She was still frowning, and I brushed her hair from where she'd pulled it round her face to hide her embarrassment. Her eyes moved to mine and I silently willed her to trust me. She shivered as her eyes softened, breathed deeply in, and out. The exhaled breath burned my throat as I drew it in. I felt oddly warm as she turned to Alice, resigned, it would seem, but still smiling, deep in her eyes. God I loved her. She was happy, she really was, and so was everyone else, even Rosalie, a little, for now.

This was mine. This life, this happiness, this wonderful moment and all the others I would make sure followed, all this was real. All this was perfect. We still had this.

"Give it to me," Bella mumbled, trying to glare and failing, and Rosalie smacked Emmett on the arm as he laughed.

Bella turned to me, silver-wrapped CD case in hand, and met my eyes with a tolerant grimace. I grinned, and she rolled her eyes, and I grinned more. I watched her eyes as she pulled her gaze away from me and focused on unwrapping the present.

And then the world stopped.

Time stopped.

Life stopped.

Burning. Burning. Burning.

Don't breathe. Don't breathe. Don't move.

And a breathless, breathing flash of incoherent thought from my right, pre-linguistic, wordless, but bitingly, familiarly clear. Thoughtless, mindless, momentary and endless.

No.

No.

No!

Beat.

Beat.

Beat.

Sound of lights, the flicker of a song and pain, pain.

Beat.

Beat.

DJ chatter thoughts, scrub on, scrub off, long trails of meaningless and burning flesh and burning throat and burning skin and—

Beat.

Beat.

Thought and no thought. Still and moving and burning and something screaming No! Wordless thoughts and wordless nothing and something screaming too slow, too slow, please, please no…no…

Beat. Beat. Beat. Beat.

Crash and burn, burning, burning, rushing pain and burning throat and burning tongue and burning lips. Crashing glass and burning skin and burning thoughts and burning, screaming mind. Snarling mine and snarling not, sound that was the enemy and teeth marks in Bella's hand and cold, white skin and pain, and pain, and pain and the crushing, smothering fear.

And no. No. No. Please no.

Thought. Thought? Thinking. The struggle for thought. The struggle for words. What?

Breathe. Don't breathe. Don't breathe—the world is burning.

_Edward. _Thoughts. _Edward!_

Carlisle.

Waves of thought and too much thought and screaming thought and bitterness and fury and pain and Carlisle's voice calling my name. Calling me back? Again?

Pain in every fibre and Carlisle's voice like God.

_Edward. Listen to me. Edward!_

Blink. Blink twice. Where is he? Where is my father? The second father, a better father, if more resented and less fairly. The second father my mother gave me, my mother gave him to me he says and I believe him because everything is gone.

_Edward. Edward, can you hear me? I'm right in front of you, Edward. Look at me._

Blink. Haze. Blood. Pain. Burning. Screaming. Fury. Protect. Protect. Protect…Carlisle?

"Edward." Relief? Relief like that last time, relief that mirrored mine as I opened my eyes and the pain was gone. "Let me by, Edward."

Protect. Protect. Protect. Blink. Blur. What?

Carlisle. Carlisle's face. Carlisle's eyes staring at me.

_Stand up, Edward._

I stood up.

I kept standing.

I wasn't breathing, so I began to take a breath and it burned and roared and made something in my mind scream at me to stop so I did.

Alice moved past me and back again.

"Edward?"

I turned my head to find her by my ear. I blinked.

"Edward. Snap out of it."

It was difficult to speak with no breath, but there was a little in my lungs from the last one. "Alice."

She shifted so she was in front of my eyes. Pause. "You're completely out of it."

Was I? The fact that I didn't know would probably suggest that she was right. I searched for some trace of reasonable thought and discovered that my mind was not operating in a reasonable way.

"Edward, Bella's hurt. She's bleeding a lot."

Blood. Yes, that was the burning. That's why I wasn't breathing.

Bella's blood.

Bella.

No. No.

My head began to spin again and I struggled to stay in control. Focus. Focus, Edward.

"Edward." _Edward?_

"Bella." I tried to force something coherent out of my useless, burning throat. "Alice, Bella—"

"She's fine, Edward." A pause. _She's fine._

"She's okay?" I felt my head settle back into order, just a little.

_Yes. She's fine. Look in front of you. She's right there. With Carlisle._

And Alice was right. She was with Carlisle, and he was taking care of her, so it had to be alright.

"I'll get your bag," Alice murmured, and I didn't realise that she wasn't talking to me until Carlisle turned around.

_Edward?_ I looked back at him. _Edward, come here and help me move Bella. Let's take her to the kitchen table._ He spoke the last words aloud as well, and I saw Bella nod, and my head was spinning again but I knew that as long as I did what he said Bella would be okay, because she had to be okay, and everything was going to be alright.

Even though she was bleeding. Even though she looked so pale. Even though she was lying in Carlisle's arms again.

_Edward…_

I stepped forward and clamped my mouth firmly shut as Carlisle motioned me down. Bella was staring at me with wide, wide eyes and I couldn't get mine to meet them, and I wasn't sure why. I felt like I was on a different planet. I felt like I was drowning, or she was, or we both were, drowning with a world between us and an ocean that wouldn't let me reach her. Skin I couldn't touch, and eyes I couldn't see, and a heartbeat I couldn't hear, even though I could hear it, pounding a million miles an hour centimetres away. I wondered briefly whether I was losing my mind. Then I was touching Bella and there was no time to wonder about anything else, because she was bleeding, and the world was burning, and everything was falling apart. _'Give it to me,' she mumbled, and rolled her eyes at me, and I grinned. I smiled, and then she was bleeding, and she was bleeding and I wasn't sure how and I stopped breathing and I heard the blood in Jasper's mind and then he was out of control and so was I and everything was blood and everything…_I shut my eyes and opened them again and pulled Bella the rest of the way into my arms. Bella needed me. Bella needed me to look after her. Bella needed me to take care of her _now_. I could think about the rest later. We walked toward the kitchen. Bella was very still. Her head rested on my chest and I wanted to kiss her forehead and tell her that everything was okay but she was still bleeding and I needed to focus on not breathing.

"How are you doing, Bella?" Carlisle asked quietly as we crossed into the kitchen.

She shifted a little against me. "I'm fine."

She was in pain. I could hear it. Not like she had been in March, but…_don't breathe_ my head reminded me, and I focused on that. Just focus on that.

Carlisle motioned to a chair and I sat Bella down as gently as I could. I stayed close to her as possible while Carlisle leaned forward and began to work, watched him inject the local anaesthetic, watched him calmly go about fixing the damage done, damage I'd once again allowed to put Bella's life at—

"Just go, Edward." Her voice was tired, strained, and for one breathless, horrifying moment I thought she was finally sending me away, away from her, away from everything that would ever matter—

_She knows you're not breathing, Edward._ Alice's tone was sharper, now she was sure I hadn't lost my mind altogether. _She's not stupid. You're worrying her._

Worrying her? She thought…I took the smallest breath I could, just enough to speak. "I can handle it." I tried to put all the certainty I had in that fact into my words, to let her know, to _make_ her know that she could be bleeding out and I could handle it, I would save her, she could be bleeding from all her major arteries and I would never hurt her, never, never…

"You don't need to be a hero." Her voice was tight—it sounded more painful than before. "Carlisle can fix me up without your help. Get some fresh air."

_She's worrying about you Edward! Really, stop being such a—_

Bella winced, with an audible intake of breath, and we were both distracted. I tried not to glare at Carlisle—I could _hear_ how hard he was trying to make this painless.

I pushed Alice's voice out of my head. "I'll stay."

"Why are you so masochistic?" Bella sounded so tired, so very tired, and so weak, and her eyes were hard, and her face was tense, and there was so much blood…

"Edward, you may as well go find Jasper before he gets too far." I turned to glare at Carlisle for speaking instead of concentrating, but he was only wiping blood from the skin around the wound, which I had to admit probably didn't require his full mental capacity. I ignored the spike in Alice's thoughts at Jasper's name. I ignored the quiet, almost, almost tentative murmur in Carlisle's thoughts—_it's not his fault, you know that, Edward._ "I'm sure he's upset with himself, and I doubt he'll listen to anyone but you right now."

I was about to send Alice off to find him—I was hardly in a state to reason with my brother, however aware I was that this was my fault, not his, when Bella turned her head to me again. "Yes," she mumbled, trying to sound enthusiastic but losing most of her voice in her throat, "Go find Jasper." I reached as carefully as I could and shifted her face back toward Carlisle so that she didn't move her arm. Her blood was too close. Far too close. Touching her was a bad idea.

"You might as well do something useful," Alice chimed it, thoughts a mess behind the lightness in her voice, and I wanted to yell at all of them that I couldn't, I couldn't protect Bella, I couldn't do what Carlisle was doing because I was too _weak_ to be like him, I couldn't give Bella a birthday without endangering her life, I couldn't even breathe in the same room as her. But Bella was still glancing up at me and back, turning her head, shifting, and I couldn't touch her again to hold her still. I couldn't touch her. And so I nodded stiffly and left before I could make things any worse. Before Bella could become convinced I was going to kill her. Before Bella had to put up with any more of my impressive inadequacy.

I'd been running in the same direction from the house for several seconds before I remembered I had a task. I stopped in the night, the feel of grass beneath my shoes, almost half a moon in the sky, barely a wind. The rain, for once, had mostly let up. The silence felt oppressive, a soundboard for the thought-streams foremost in my mind. Carlisle, calmly pulling pieces of glass from Bella's arm in a way that I never could. Alice, thoughts wild, throat burning, almost distracted by her panic about her husband, sending mad ripples through my mind of _Jasper, Jasper, Jasper_. Jasper was several miles away, Emmett and Rose half a mile behind, both focused on giving him space while following him closely enough to stop trouble. Emmett's mind was hard, half angry, half pitying and worried for us all in a brick wall, great protector sort of way that I knew I'd never manage. Rosalie was so furious at Jasper and at me and at Bella and at Alice and at us all that her thoughts made no sense. And Jasper. Jasper whose thoughts I tried the hardest to block out, because I had enough guilt and enough pain and enough fury on my own without his as well. I could hear in Emmett's mind, less confused than Rosalie's, the stress of Jasper's emotions pressing outward, the failure in control letting things spill over. I'd have to be mad to get closer to that. But I was mad, wasn't I? It was my thoughts that were the most insane of anyone's. What had I been thinking, bringing Bella here? Almost daily? For months? Had I _forgotten_ that Jasper couldn't do this? No, no I hadn't because his thoughts played through mine every day. What was wrong with me that I had taken that risk? What in the world was I doing? I knew I was breathing too fast and I tried to stop, tried to focus, tried to stop letting Alice's panic and Jasper's, and even Esme's infect me. My own thoughts were strangely empty, but that only left more space for panic. What was happening? What was anything? Anything. I forced myself to breathe deeply as I turned toward the river. Fresh, damp air. Pine and mud. The start of autumn decay past the evergreens. Time to find Jasper. Nothing else to be done. See if I can destroy anything else.

So I turned my back on the house and raced into the darkness, used the trees to cross the river and hit the dirt beyond, flew toward the faint echo of Jasper's retreating mind. The night was still too silent. My mind still made no sense. And I still couldn't block out Alice's thoughts, bouncing through the air like wildfire from the house.

_Everything's going to be okay. Everything's going to be okay. Everything has to be okay._

_Bella's fine. Jasper will be fine, and so will Edward. We'll all be okay._

_We have to be okay._

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A/N: So, a short note (EDIT: short was probably the wrong term here :P). This chapter was particularly troublesome because Edward isn't really thinking coherently for the entire second half. I tried doing the 'moment of truth' conventionally, it didn't work, thus I went slightly less conventional. If you hate it, tell me :P If you don't, also tell me ;D Sometimes less straightforward writing just works better, even in simple narrative prose stories like the Twilight saga. If you don't believe me, look between NM chapter 3 and 4 :P But yeah, tell me if you hate it. The bit that really had trouble for me was directly before that, 'cause I couldn't get the knowledge of what was about to happen out of my head, and the bit after, because well, as you probably noticed, Edward kind of lost it :P Anyhow. The final edit on this kind of died about an hour ago along with my brain, so I'm hoping there's nothing too terrible I've missed ;D All feedback/suggestions are very much appreciated!

Other than that…thanks for reading, thanks for reviewing, and see you next week for more pain, suffering and life-changing devastation (isn't New Moon great? :P)! You are all the most awesome readers ever – how many fic readers would sit and chat with me about character analysis like half of you do? Not many :P Therefore, you guys are awesome.

Also, a quick note on moon phases, in case anyone picks this up; in NM ch3, it says that two days after this Bella thinks there is a new moon, which would, of course, make the moon phase I have given near the end of this chapter incorrect. Having looked up 2005's moon phases, however, I can report that while Bella, disorientated in the dark in the forest, thought there was a new moon, there was in fact just over a half moon that night. Bella was just confused :P Yeah, I know it'd be more poetically effective and awesome if I just went with it being a new moon. But I normally (outside of fanfic) write historical fantasy, so being obsessive with details is wired into my blood :P

K, I'll stop prattling at you now ;-D That was a really long author note (it was longer, too. I shortened it :-P). Reviews much appreciated :-) (Let me know if this chapter was too long, as well. Chapters won't usually be this long, but if 6200 words is too much, I can split any future long ones in half).

Love and cookies to all! J.


	10. Chapter 9: Evasive

A/N: Firstly, sorry this is so late. My need for sleep conspired with my body against me and knocked me out cold…anyhow, that aside ;-D I had a completely unreasonable amount of trouble writing this in past tense, lol. It madly wanted to write itself in present. I've edited reasonably thoroughly, but if I've missed something, please let me know :-) Sorry if parts of it sound like present tense converted to past. It just would not come any other way today, lol.

Oh, and a quick note – there's a brief reference in this chapter to one of my other fics. If you haven't read The Best Parts of Perfect (which is my favourite of my fics, so please do read it? :-P Hehe), then when Edward/Bella briefly quotes Romeo and Juliet below, he's thinking of a night he describes in that fic when he told Bella he'd stay up with her instead of making her go to sleep only if she could remember the whole of Juliet…and didn't think she could do it, but she did. Haha, it sounds very unexciting put like that :-P

Anyhow, here be fic! Cullen-ful, memory-ful, running-ful fic. It's another long chapter, to make up a little for being late :-P Warning: small instances of uncontrollable sap ;-)

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Chapter 9: Evasive

Running. Rushing wind and shadows of the moon and the scent of three vampires, three familiar scents running away from me. Jasper was still just within thought range, maybe three and a half miles ahead of me, and he could still smell it, I could feel her scent in his thoughts. Four miles from the house, the scent of Bella's blood still cut through anything else the senses picked up. Screamingly, vividly powerful human blood exposed to the air, not even a layer of skin hiding it away. The sharp scent of ruin.

Jasper kept running and Rose and Emmett kept running behind him and my legs closed the distance pace by pace—I was nothing if not fast. The forest passed, and the distance closed. The distance closed, and my mind ran empty circles.

Thirst. Burning thirst and terror on my angel's face. The strong pulse of perfect blood and the last seconds of life. Bella moments from death, and a monster in my eyes, because all the fiends in the world couldn't compare to my thirst. Images that lived behind the silences in my thoughts, months I didn't think about because the monster was me and I couldn't know that and be by Bella. I couldn't know what I was and do this. I protected Bella. I did not plan to kill her. The monster was someone else. Some other thing inside me that was dead now. Even though I knew that was a lie.

I silenced my mind and ran, because if I knew who I was I would have to stop lying to us all.

A flash of a moment of the past.

"Edward?" She had whispered. Memories of rain and the smell of her.

The monster was me. From the start, the monster was always me.

"Edward?" Light rain and Bella's truck and the moss-scented twilight hour that extended out across the horizon here.

This memory was…too close.

"Edward…" her voice had been quiet for once, too quiet. "Is it really that terrible? To be alive, for you?" For once she hadn't been shouting it. She'd sounded…sad. Strong, resolute, but sad. "Would death really be so much better? Better than…" She'd bitten her lip like she always did, her mouth had tightened, her jaw clenched as she looked away from me into the trees. I heard her exhale. I saw the tiny movements that were her shoulders rolling forward, her anger draining. She shrugged weakly, still not looking at me. "Better than this?"

Not this again. This conversation was meaningless, so why were we still having it? "Bella, I…" I took a deep breath, stalling, trying to find the words to tread the right line. The magic words that would fix this, that would make her understand I loved her more than my own soul, more than my own peace, that she was my soul and my peace and my everything, everything that I'd lost and more. Why could she not understand what I was telling her, telling her again and again and again? I loved her too much to damn her this way. And yet she stood here and acted like I didn't want to be with her. Like she'd heard none of my explanations. I took a deep breath and tried to consider the question. Could death be better than this? Death, of course, implied a universe in which I'd remained human, remained holy. I unlocked the car door while I tried to compile an answer. It was blasphemy to say that the earth, especially doomed as I was, could surpass the Heavenly eternity of union with God. Bella, however, was not significantly religious—I had never even tried to explain our issue to her in those terms.

I spun as I heard Bella take a step away, and stepped quickly between my angel and the trees. She rolled her eyes, and I ignored it. There were not going to be any more mistakes. Carelessness was not something I could afford with Bella.

"The trees aren't going to bite me, Edward." Her voice was flat, dull. She was still shuffling slowly toward the tree line. I took her shoulder as gently as I could and turned her around. She glared. I heard her argument coming in the way she breathed out. "Okay, so you'd rather be in Heaven than here, right? That's the reason you won't change me?"

I tried to guide her back to the car, and tried not to sigh when she just stepped away from my hand.

"Listen to me Edward. I get that you think it's unnatural, that it'd be better to just live for eighty years and then go to Heaven or to Hell, but it doesn't make sense."

I settled for watching the darkness and letting her speak. She was less angry once she'd said all she could think of, sometimes. Sometimes she just stayed angry.

"I'm not really an expert, but Heaven's meant to be eternal, right? It lasts forever. So it doesn't really matter _when_ I go there, in the scheme of things. As long as you don't let me kill humans, then it's fine. So we live hundreds of years instead of eighty _then_ die together and go to Heaven then. What's wrong with that? And I know vampires can die, 'cause Emmett and Jasper killed one in March, so don't tell me they can't."

I wasn't going to have this argument. Not with Bella. I was not going to yell, and I was not going to be upset, or angry, or frustrated. I took Bella's wrist firmly in hand and walked back to the door of the car.

Bella looked infuriated. "Edward! Stop ignoring me! Is this so terrible? Do you hate this that much? Funny, 'cause I've really enjoyed this summer, and I thought you had too, but maybe I was just—"

I released her wrist long enough to turn to her and take both. She jumped, and abruptly stopped yelling…though she hadn't really been yelling, just yelling in a whisper, and I was thankful that her father couldn't hear all of this from inside.

She didn't speak again while I held her wrists, held her facing me, held her still and here and silent. I took two long, deep breaths and made myself calm. This summer had been amazing. This summer had been more than I had ever dreamed of having. If I had not made that clear, it was my failing, not her fault.

I reached out on impulse to touch her cheek, and cursed myself for my haste—reaching out on impulse for her face of all things was idiotic. I was going to lose her if I let my emotions get away with me that way. I let my hand rest there as we both breathed and she slowly stopped glaring, eyes wide, breath short. The arm I'd released fell limply to her side.

By the time I found words, my voice was calm, slow, quiet. I could hear the birds falling asleep around us, the rain filtering through canopies and sails of moss and mazes of green to the earth and the pattering ground cover of decomposing life. But most of all, I could hear her breathing.

I let myself lean close to her, let myself hear her heartbeat, let myself feel her breath on my skin. "Bella, right now, the earth feels…better than Heaven," I rushed the words, ignoring the instinct in my mind and my learning that it was wrong to say that. It felt right. It felt true. I couldn't imagine trading this summer for anything. I couldn't imagine giving this summer up, even for Heaven. "Bella, when I stand here with you, when I can hear your heartbeat, when you speak to me and when you look at me and when I know there is this person who is so impossibly beautiful, so good, and so loving, and so kind, when I look at you and see you in the world, then the world feels a million times closer to heaven, just because you're mine," I whispered, and the 'mine' was peace, it was relief, it was something in my dead heart that still almost worked. She wasn't glaring anymore. I let my breath out and tried to relax. She was shaking. I cupped Bella's face in both hands and held her gaze the best I could, willing her to understand. "I wouldn't lose this for…" but I couldn't say it. I let the words hang. I didn't know. I couldn't imagine willingly giving up Bella, ever. For anything. But the 'anything' wouldn't come out. _What if you could have _it, something whispered, something deep, something that wouldn't let me let go. _What if you could be human? What if you could have it back?_ I tried to focus on Bella's face, tried to ignore the taunt that caught me when I slipped and let dreams come out.

"Edward?" Bella sounded puzzled, almost concerned. I realised abruptly that I had been hanging half-way through a sentence for some seconds. Half-way through a question I couldn't answer. What if I could be human? Between Bella and humanity, what would I choose? The tiny, dreaming voice, the voice that loved the sun and hated when I stopped breathing and longed, longed like nothing else to sleep and dream raged inside me. _Would you be damned for her? Would you lose everything for her?_

And somehow, in some twisted, truly twisted way, that made it easier. Would I lose everything for Bella? Would I do anything for her? Would I sell my soul for Bella? If she desired it? The voice that clung to what was left of my humanity screamed inside. Of course I would. Of course.

"Are you okay…?" Bella reached up to touch my face and I jumped, just catching myself before I shattered the wrist I still held in one hand.

I smiled faintly, feeling the battling remnants of who I had been and who I was and who I might become tearing each other to pieces. "I'm fine."

Bella didn't look convinced. I leaned forward just enough to kiss her forehead. She blushed. I almost grinned. "Bella, this summer has been more than I ever imagined. I would not give it, or this, or you, up for anything." I felt my voice steel just a little, and fought it. "Even for humanity." It didn't matter, anyway. It wasn't a possibility. But something else was, and that, of course, as always, was the matter at hand.

Bella opened her mouth, and I abruptly let her go, turning back to the truck. "But that doesn't change anything."

And I had seen Bella rubbing her eyes and I could feel as I raced through the forest and Jasper raced away the million memories of her rubbing her eyes, and how I always wondered whether she honestly thought I couldn't see. The tears in her eyes and the tears on her cheeks and the tears she kept in all looked the same. I played by the rules and pretended I didn't see when she thought I couldn't. She wasn't happy with me. She loved me, she said, but she was always angry with me now, even when she smiled. I didn't make her happy. The trees shifted around me, the ground flew, branches shattered and birds woke up and fled, and I wondered whether this would ever go away, and I wondered how long she could hate me before she stopped loving me. I wasn't equipped to understand these emotions. I understood _everything_, but not Bella.

I shook my head clear to measure my surroundings, scent any humans in the area, and was almost startled—I had a pursuer. A moment's search told me it was Alice. Her mind called out to me like a beacon, more familiar even than Carlisle's. She was only three miles behind me; I'd missed her leaving the house in my preoccupation. This was good, I decided—I could leave Jasper with her once I'd talked him down. I sped up a little, just a little, and tried to focus on the chase. My mind would not settle. It felt like it was running away from something—away from itself?—and I didn't know why. Focus evaded me. I searched for my last thought-stream, something to anchor me.

Bella. Bella and the way I couldn't understand her. It was so simple for me, so beautifully, burningly simple. I loved her, and that was all there was. It made very straightforward sense. Of course I loved Bella. How could I not? Hers, though…Bella's love confused me. Her love was human, and I hadn't been human long enough to understand it. I'd tried to remember others I'd known, human friends engaged or married and anything they'd said, but there was nothing, nothing I still recalled. I had returned time and time again to searching the thoughts of the townspeople and eagerly in larger population centres, in Seattle and Olympia. I'd sifted through the minds of couples, married couples, engaged couples, girlfriends and unrequited infatuations and every other variation that flitted through my scope of thought. I had for eighty-seven years unwillingly heard the minds of hundreds of thousands of humans who claimed to be in love, and in not one had I ever found anything so pure as what Carlisle and Esme shared, anything so completely destined as the bond between Alice and Jasper or as inexplicable as the way Rosalie and Emmett lived for each other when any normal person would kill Rosalie within a minute. I had searched through thousands more in the past few months, deliberately seeking, trying to understand Bella, but I'd found nothing that I could call love. As the months had passed, I'd begun to resign myself. Perhaps this really was all humans had of love. As pleasant as it would be to fool myself, there was little chance that Bella was the one and only human capable of feeling what otherwise appeared to be exclusively Immortal emotions. So maybe that was the key. Maybe what I understood as love was not what Bella professed or felt. Maybe Bella's love was too different for me to understand. Her mind was so hard to imagine. So impossible.

I had slowly integrated the conclusion over time. I couldn't imagine Bella's mind, the pure, loving kindness that I could barely comprehend, but I could conceptualise what I had searched for. I could accept that her love was different to mine, and combine the parts of others' experiences that seemed to fit. It helped a little, the acceptance of a different, human feeling. I could accept her anger at the same time as her love, and understand their co-existence. I could accept that she did love me when she said she did, and that what I didn't understand within that was simply too human for my comprehension. It was a relief, that measure of explanation and resolution. A comfort. It told me that this could be stable. It told me that this could be okay for Bella. But it didn't tell me when everything would end. It told me frustratingly little of timing and feelings. It gave me no warning, told me nothing of when she would change her mind and ask me to leave. Only that she would.

I shook my head and tried to forget that particular focus. I growled at the world at large, felt slightly foolish when more birds scattered and tried to ignore it. It would be brilliant if my mind could actually focus on something _useful_. Unfortunately it seemed set on running itself in circles, ignoring me, evading me. It would focus only superficially, and only on the questions and conclusions that made me want to stop thinking again. I sped up once more. It didn't help. There was nothing around me to catch my thoughts—running was effortless, and Jasper was not trying to be quiet, so he wasn't hard to follow. I wouldn't catch them for minutes yet—they'd had a sizeable start on me. Memories filtered through my mind like computer scrolls, flashes of an image and a word and another and another too quick to be coherent, cataloguing moments, seconds of a life that I had no right to.

Bella. Bella. Bella. Moonlight and sunlight and warmth and touch and her voice whispering in breath at my ear and her hair cutting lines across my eyes and her scent and her softness and her voice, her beautiful, beautiful voice.

"Good night, good night!" she had whispered in my ear and kissed me, ignoring my objections, and I had been glad that she ignored them though I knew it was wrong. Her hand had rested warm, warm and with its own pulse on my chest, and she'd smiled the words in a way that told me she was saying something more behind them. "As sweet repose and rest come to thy heart as that within my breast." And she'd wrapped her arms around me, so much more heat than I could possibly think through, and met my eyes murmured with a silly, sleep-starved grin on her face. "Your heart can rest. Even if you can't sleep. We can both not sleep, and our hearts can both rest together." It had been rather silly, and uncharacteristically soft for Bella, and I'd known her exhaustion was talking, but I liked it. The idea of our hearts at peace together, hers beating, mine still. And I whispered scripted nothings back to her lips, all night long, and she needed sleep but I had promised her and some nights weren't worth ending, even for sleep.

We sat by the river some evenings and watched the light fade from the sky when the sun had already set and whispered about pasts and futures, days we didn't want to forget and places we wanted to find and things we wanted to see, and a lot of the time we didn't say much because all I wanted to see was her and she wouldn't tell me where she wanted to go because she knew I'd take her and for some absurd reason, that always bothered her. But we sat there just the same and laughed, and watched the stars, and she thought they were beautiful and I thought she was beautiful and when she spoke the air seemed to still and wait to hear her, and I knew I probably just imagined that 'cause _I_ did, but I didn't mind. It was wonderful. It was bliss. It was more than I could ever have deserved, but I let it come because I wanted it, I wanted her so much, even if I could never deserve her. Just to watch her live. Just to watch her be. To know that she loved me—to know that made me happier than I would've thought possible. But just knowing she was there…just knowing, seeing, feeling that this perfect, loving, giving creature existed…that was gift enough. That was all I needed. To be with her. To protect her. To watch her live. To keep her safe.

By the time I realised that Rosalie was speaking to me, I suspected she'd tried several times. She'd turned around to intercept me even though she knew she couldn't stop me, or even catch me for that matter, and was wishing all kinds of creative death on me.

_Stop right now, Edward! If you've come out here to attack_—she bit out the word—_Jasper, then you can turn around and go home this second! He's not the one who brought a human into our house. You've already done—_

"Shut up, Rosalie," I called through the trees, not bothering to slow.

I was going to find Jasper, stop him running, and get back to where I should be, with Bella.

"Then stop running!"

I glared in her general direction—she was only a few hundred metres away now, still approaching me. "Carlisle asked me to bring him back. Now if you don't mind, Rosalie, I'd love to do that so I can go back myself."

Rosalie didn't reply, but I could still hear the fury in her thoughts.

With a modicum of focus back on my surroundings and attempting to stay there, I could hear Alice behind me, a little over three miles back now, Jasper two miles ahead, Emmet a mile behind him. I tried to sort out some kind of a plan. Jasper wasn't going back to the house until Bella was well gone—I felt no particular need to bring him any closer at all. If I could just stop him running, I could leave him out here with the other three…how much care could Carlisle possibly expect me to take of him? He was lucky I didn't…I clenched my jaw and reminded myself that Jasper had acted instinctually, whereas I had been fully aware when I'd dragged Bella here, and against her will no less. She hadn't even wanted to come.

_This is your fault, Edward_. Rosalie had apparently found her voice…her silent voice…again. She had also recovered her profound stupidity if she thought I didn't already know this was my fault.

I didn't slow. "I'm aware of that. Go back to Emmett and let me talk to Jasper."

Jasper was close enough now that he couldn't ignore our yelling. I could hear him hearing it, I heard him slow down a moment then speed up by half again—his thoughts slipping between wanting a fight with me, wanting me to beat him senseless and wanting to run all the way to China to avoid looking me or Alice in the eye. And in all of them, beneath them all, the everything that just wanted blood. Carlisle was right, of course. He wasn't going to stop for just anyone. I checked that Rosalie had gone to stop Emmett—which, begrudgingly, she had—as I sped up myself. Jasper was fast. I was faster.

"Jasper!"

His thoughts were too chaotic to help me much—he was heavily preoccupied with the burn in his throat. The other three were falling behind, Emmett and Rosalie deliberately. Alice couldn't keep up with Jasper, and certainly not with me.

"Damn it, Jasper, come back here!" I knew my anger was coming through, and I tried to quash it. I had better things to do than get into a fight with him. Our fights were too evenly matched to ever go anywhere, and we were both equally distracted today. We'd end up grappling and chasing for hours if I got angry.

He sped up again and I followed. He was pushing his limit. I wasn't far from mine, and mine was a good deal higher than his. Alice was rapidly losing us. _Edward?_

I whistled quickly, loudly enough to carry, to show I'd heard—hopefully Jasper was too busy losing his mind and running to realise I was talking to Alice.

I caught the pause in her thoughts, the hesitation. _Guilt him, Edward._

What? I kept running, hoping Jasper didn't run us out of my range with Alice.

_I want him to stop running, Edward. I just want him to stop running. So guilt him. Do you get it? Mention Bella. Guilt him into stopping for you. Please._

She sounded guilty enough herself to join Jasper and I in our misery. It was, however, not a bad idea.

"Jasper!" I tried again. Failing at calm, I aimed tiredly for just frustrated, not furious. "I would really like to get back to Bella, and I can't do that until you stop! Would you please slow down?" It was not often I yelled loud enough for the sound to travel a mile and a half—and this I pushed to three, as I wanted to keep Alice involved—over the rain and the wind in the ears of a sprinting vampire. Not sounding angry was not working well. I wondered for a moment whether we were too loud—if someone from town heard us, there'd be questions. At least they'd be unlikely to recognise my voice. No one in Forks had heard me this furious, even at myself. The seconds ticked and, step by step, miraculously, Jasper slowed down.

_I think you did it_, Alice whispered in my mind, forlorn and guilty and miserable and still panicked. I shuffled quickly through her thoughts—definitely panic, and no clear images. So her visions were playing up. Alice never panicked, not for more than a minute or two. This was coming up ten. I made a note to ask her. Ahead, Jasper was still slowing. Alice was right, of course. It had worked. I sped up in silence.

Several seconds passed with only the slow drop and smash of the raindrops. I inched closer to Jasper, quickly now. A bird, a large bird of some kind cried out in the darkness. The rain fell. And then, he had stopped.

"What do you want from me, Edward?"

It was fifteen seconds to reach him, I could taste the distance left. "To stop!" I yelled into the white noise of wind and rain and the quiet echo hit leaves and dirt and pine needles shattering against my skin, lashing my face in the wind. I was impervious. Five seconds. Three, two, one…

I stopped a few metres from him, trees throwing deep shadows, and tried to ignore the instincts—the killing instinct that fed after a chase, the higher instincts that saw him snarling at Bella, snapping for her blood, and wanted him dead—telling me to rip him limb from limb.

Jasper was standing perfectly still, eyes downcast, watching me from under his eyelids.

"I'm sorry."

I took two long breaths in and out. _Is he okay? Is he alright, Edward?_ Alice had heard us stop.

"I don't know what happened." Jasper's voice was flat but I could hear the anger beneath, the disgust at his own weakness, the poorly disguised fear, the pain, the tension of the burn. "I won't be going near her again, don't worry."

I shook my head tiredly, trying to focus on getting this over with. "I heard the thought. It was pure instinct. You couldn't have stopped yourself."

"You have the same instincts I do."

I shrugged. "You never denied having trouble. I hear your thoughts every day. I shouldn't have brought her to the house."

Jasper finally looked up at that. "You bring Bella to the house every day. She's virtually a member of the family. Alice…"

I waited for him to trail off, thoughts gravitating once more to Alice's fury. "It doesn't matter." I couldn't explain to him that Alice was as aware as I was that there were more of us at fault here than just Jasper. "I've been unforgivably foolish. The whole time." The words sank into my skin as I spoke them and I struggled to focus on Jasper.

He couldn't argue with that. "Carlisle sent you after me?"

I nodded.

"I wasn't off to find some unsuspecting household of humans, you know." He raised his eyes to catch mine, and I looked away. "I was caught by surprise in there."

I nodded non-committally. He growled quietly at his feet, or the ground, or the world at large. "I suppose it'll sound laughable now to say he should have a little faith in me." He looked up long enough to glare at me, to glare at the trees. "You all should. Yeah, I'm weak. Fine. I'm not running to find some kids to slaughter."

It was Alice he as thinking of, of course. I could hear her behind me—she had slowed a little, confident Jasper was safe and not going anywhere. It would take her another minute to get here. I returned my attention to my brother. "That's not why I was after you. I didn't hear any worry of the sort from Carlisle, and it certainly didn't occur to me."

Jasper laughed bitterly, low under his breath. "It wouldn't. Of course not."

There was an uneasy silence while I tried to extract some coherent order from his thoughts and they remained inconstant.

He laughed again. "You're still a good kid."

That, however, I had no patience for. "Fuck you, Jasper." I was _not_ in the mood for his 'Edward's a little rich boy with conservative morals' crap.

He shrugged, and it caught me because normally when he went on with that rubbish he was smirking. "It's true."

I lacked the energy or the motivation to argue.

The whole conversation felt as wrong as it was.

Alice had slowed as she closed to the last few hundred metres. I changed the subject. "Alice is here."

"I know."

I tried again to sift through his thoughts, figure out what he was planning. It was difficult.

He broke the silence first. "You shouldn't have to stay away from the house." His voice was quiet, and finally I could see the echoes of order falling into place in his mind. He should stay away. He had made a mistake, and he no longer belonged here. The thought was wrenchingly painful, and the fact that it was his emotion, not mine, only made it marginally less so. I tried to think clearly. This would kill Alice. This would kill Esme. I spoke carefully. "You live here too."

"Any kid in Forks High could get a paper cut any time. Honest, Edward, I'm lucky it was here with you right there and not some kid next to me in a class. We could have twenty, thirty kids dead…"

Well, that was familiar. I tried very hard not to think that.

"I can't stay here."

I didn't like it—it made me sick for all of us—but the logic was there in his thoughts, and it was true. Not every student's blood was like Bella's, but that didn't mean it mightn't be enough to do what had almost happened tonight, if it caught him by surprise.

"Thinking I'll go north for a while. Stay with the girls in Alaska."

I nodded dumbly, suddenly lost on what to say.

"They understand my difficulty," he laughed darkly, and for a moment I could see the danger in his eyes, violence that had all but faded by the time he and Alice had first reached us. "They were once red-eyed too."

There was nothing much I could say to that. He was not the only one. I had been red-eyed for nearly five years. But it had been different. Not different enough, but different all the same.

"How do you do it?"

For once, the question actually caught me by surprise. It wasn't hard to decipher what he meant, and it was not a pleasant shift of thought—the shadow of bloody nights in backstreets lingered, screams, always screaming, and filth and the glorious taste of blood and streetlight shadows that melted into black before they touched me. I forced those years away. I didn't want them touching Bella, even in my mind. "I love her."

He didn't look convinced. "She smells even…better to you, doesn't she?" Awkward, stilted. _Than she does to me?_

I tried not to growl, and mostly managed—he was obviously trying to phrase it without threat. I nodded. "You can't begin to imagine."

"Right."

We stood awkwardly for a few moments while Jasper felt guilty and I felt sick and my emotions made him feel worse and his beat out of him like blood haze.

_Edward?_ Alice stood in the trees two-hundred metres behind me, and I knew she was asking if she could come the rest of the way. But there was one more thing to say. One thing I had to say. "You could do it," I muttered, trying to ignore the guilt and the thirst and the doubt plain on his face and in his mind and in the air around him. "You could do it too, if it were Alice."

Jasper didn't reply.

I glanced behind me, found the flash of white that was Alice's skin in the moonlight. "I'm going back now. Hang with Alice, yeah?"

Jasper nodded, not meeting my eye.

I sighed, and tried to find any trace of a lie in his thoughts. "If you try to run north before you speak to Carlisle and Esme, I will come after you and tear off your legs."

Jasper's eyes were on the bit of Alice that could be seen—she was hiding behind a tree, though she wasn't stupid enough to think it would stop him seeing her. "I wouldn't do that to Esme. Go back to Bella."

Her name came out like he was afraid to have it in his mouth.

His eyes were back on me for just a moment. "Tell her I'm sorry, will you?"

I nodded in silence. I'd get to that somewhere after apologising to her for my own complete idiocy, something that would take at least the rest of all time if I was to get anywhere close to expressing what I felt and unfortunately, Bella didn't have that long. I signalled behind me to Alice as I turned back toward the house. She passed me almost instantly. For one long moment as I watched she glared murder from a foot away, fury on her face that I hadn't seen in six months, and for many years before that. Jasper sighed deeply. "I'm sorry, Alice."

And she shook her head, and stepped quickly into his arms, pain and hurt and disbelief melting in her thoughts, melting into silent prayers for the only person in her life who really mattered to her in the end. I couldn't listen to Alice's thoughts when Jasper was in them, not anymore. I would never have a mate, because the one who should have been mine was human, and would die, and would leave me long before that. And that, for a vampire, was the pain that surpassed blood, surpassed venom, surpassed all else.

"I love you, Jazz." Alice's dry sobs echoed to my ears through the trees as I ran away. "You'll kill me, but we're going to get through this."

There were fourteen miles between me and Bella. Fourteen miles of trees, and mud, and rain, and the beating hearts and pumping blood of a thousand baser creatures. There were fourteen miles between me and my angel. And as I raced back toward her, praying that she was not too badly hurt, praying that she could still find some way in her impossibly forgiving heart to trust me, praying that my brain would start working again and stop running itself in evasive circles some time soon, as I raced over the miles toward her, fourteen miles, to seven, to three, I could still smell her blood, iron and salt and flowers and death dancing on the wind.

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A/N: Thursday morning, I had a grand total of three pages very, very rough draft. Then…it rained! And now I have a chapter :-P I need to move somewhere it always rains. Like Forks (nods solemnly). Sorry again it's so late – had work yesterday and didn't get the edit finished on lunch hour, then fell asleep finishing it when I got home. I am now (mostly) awake, however, and have just finished the edit, and am posting! Thank you for your patience! :-D

So I suppose you all know what's coming next chapter (it's not 'it', because there are two days of hell to come before that. Next week the hell begins). I suspect it is going to be tough to get together, even though I've got the worst of it written. Hopefully it will come together in the way the occasion deserves…particularly in honour of what's happening 2 days later! Speaking of which, week after next, I assume there will be no chapter of this fic. BD arrives in this country Monday evening. I'm going to spend Tuesday and Wednesday reading it several times, and Thursday ficcing that, not New Moon ;-D I suspect you'll all be doing the same, but just letting you know :-)

Oh, also, just thought of this and figured I should clear it up – Edward is, obviously, fairly (very) religious, in a 1910 meets 1660 kind of way ;-D I personally am not religious at all, but I do have a very workable knowledge of most world religions, and a personal knowledge of Christianity. I am using both those sets of knowledge to write Edward, and I'm not overly worried about it. But if anyone does think I've managed to get it completely wrong, do tell me :-) I never, ever mean to misrepresent, offend or whatever else anyone's religious beliefs :-)

Breaking Dawn themed hugs to all! Reviews very much appreciated!

EDIT: Sorry guys, thought of one more thing - is 'T' still the right rating for this fic? I ask this chapter because of the language, though I'll ask you again next week for different reasons. But yeah, this chapter - I'm never sure where the popular line is between 'minor coarse language' and 'coarse language' :P So please tell me your opinion on whether I should 'M' rate this! Thanks in advance for your help, everyone :) J

EDIT 2: This won't reach most of you, as I think all my regular readers have read this chapter, but some advance warning :) There will be one more chapter before the Breaking Dawn release. After the release, this fic will be on a 4 week break. This is for two reasons. Firstly, Breaking Dawn - reading it, ficcing it, reading fic about it - will be occupying everyone's time anyway ;D Secondly (and this is the main reason :P), I have the national cosplay finals on August 24-25, and my costumes are seriously behind because I spend all my time on this fic ;D I have to put the next month into that, and the coming chapters are too important to do a quick, dodgy, in between sewing job on. I want to do them properly, but I also need to get my costumes finished.

So there will be one more chapter (which I love in a masochistic sort of way, so hopefully you guys will too!) before the release, then it'll be back August 28 :) Thank you all in advance for your patience with me :) J


	11. Chapter 10: Red and Gold

A/N: Firstly, welcome to the many people who've added this to their alerts while I've been on hiatus. I'm honoured to have you all reading :-) The chapter is finally here...I just have a slightly lengthy author's note to chat at you all first ;D

As I'm sure most of you know by now, this fic's return comes on a very sad day for our fandom, and particularly for this pocket of it. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go here: www dot stepheniemeyer dot com /midnightsun.html

I would like to make a brief comment, since this is an issue close to all our hearts.

I urge those people who are storming around the internet being angry about this to stop for a minute and be reasonable. There is no point being mad at _anyone_ - at those who read the leaked copy, or those who didn't, and especially not at Stephenie. Stephenie is not saying 'I hate my fans now and will deliberately withhold the book'. She's saying that right now, she can't finish it. Most of us here are authors, so we know what that's like. She doesn't want to sit down and hack out the best she can from a shot headspace because Edward's better than that. And so right now, she can't finish it. And if she can't finish it, it can't be published. So please, please don't start cursing Stephenie left and right, it's just not fair. She has given us an amazing gift with her writing, and we need to show some thanks, something we don't always do enough.

I sincerely hope that by tonight everyone will have calmed down, enjoyed the draft as officially posted on Steph's site, and settled for hoping that eventually Stephenie is able to finish, and that when she does, she'll want to share it with us.

Those who choose to be angry at our author are being silly and making the situation worse. I really cannot express that strongly enough.

Now, at this point I should say that I doubt many if any of you have been doing any of the above, but the number of people getting carried away with their emotions has got me posting this everywhere I'm listened to :P Stephenie really, really does not deserve the horrendous way parts of this fandom behave at times.

Now, back to the fic :-)

Sorry it's a few hours late – I really, really meant to have it out yesterday, but I don't have internet at work, so I couldn't post it. I should also note that I have not yet read the MS draft – I will, but I want to get this chapter out to you now. Hopefully my Edward isn't too far off ;D

Thank you all very, very much for your patience, your messages of encouragement, and everything else :-) You guys are legends, and I really hope that you enjoy this chapter.

Please review! I've missed you all terribly! (well, the ones who haven't messaged me anyway :P)

Oh, and a humble recommendation; maybe reread the last chapter (or few) before you read this one? As you'll remember, Edward is in a fairly chaotic headspace, and it may be difficult to jump into half way like this. And it does continue to be chaotic in different ways throughout this chapter. Thanks guys!

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Chapter 10: Red and Gold

The miles dissolved under my feet. Meaningless, empty distance, distance that took no effort and barely time to cover. Trees like shadowed ghosts, echoes around me older than I was. Timelessness. Distance that counted for nothing, like everything in this world did faced with the enormity of time and the infinite. Running was the most endless of spaces for me. Poignant, almost, I thought, only a little hysterically, and I wasn't entirely sure how that made sense, but I was running, and that made not thinking more natural. I could run, and keep running, I could swim when I reached the ocean or, if I had the motivation to cling to the ground, I could run along the seabed and just keep running, though I'd never had reason to try it. I could round the world, and round it again, and it would mean as much as the fourteen miles between my brothers and sisters in the darkness and Bella, Bella sitting bleeding in our kitchen with Carlisle who was so much more like her than like us, yet damned as we were, damned like she wouldn't be, never, not if the world had to burn for it. I could run the length of time and back, and provided blood lived on around me to feed, I could keep running, and keep running, and that could be it. That was a life. That was my living. Imitation living. There was no struggle. There was no endpoint and no threat. There was a meaningless world with little effect on me, a passage of time with even less, a universe that could end and probably still leave me. Us.

Three miles to two and two miles to one and with the blood still out, still staining and pooling like liquid gold and opium on who knew what, I could scent her even from here. My endpoint. The endpoint I wasn't meant to have. Not now. The endpoint I was meant to have lost.

Seconds. Seconds passing toward her and what was I meant to say?

_Edward._

I stopped abruptly—my name always caught me, even after eighty-seven years of thoughts.

_My beautiful, foolish son._

I blinked. Carlisle?

_It was right. Yes, it was right._

He wasn't talking to me. No…I had to focus a second to pick it out through the wash of memory. He was talking to Bella. About me. Not calling me. But the images in his mind were…vivid. Images I'd learned to block out quicker than I'd learned anything else as a vampire. He'd learned to stop thinking them too, or he'd tried, but there…I tried half-heartedly to stop watching, to stop listening. There they were. Perfect and vivid as the day he'd seen them. His voice was clear at this distance, but the visions buried it, made him too distant. The visions overtook everything.

"I looked at Edward." Quiet. Quiet and full of memory.

I could see myself in his mind's eye, so weak, so perfectly, humanly weak I wanted to scream, or to roar, more likely. _So strong, in so much pain._ I could feel the pain in Carlisle's thoughts, and the small smile, the way he saw me, the way I never deserved to be seen. "Sick as he was, he was still beautiful." Happy delusions I'd never fulfilled, even before. _And she sees it. You see it, don't you, Bella?_ "There was something pure and good about his face." _His strength. _My weakness. _His faith. All the love that he's finding now. _"The kind of face I would have wanted my son to have." I couldn't move—I couldn't think. _It's going to save him. You're going to save him, Bella. He's in a great deal of pain. But he will be at peace. His peace will come yet._ Smiling. Always quietly smiling.

My face was in his eyes, in his mind, my face I barely recognised in his memories and his thoughts and his words. My face in Bella's eyes and my face snarling in Jasper's mind, out of range now, and the monster inside me that never died, and never slept, and never stopped calling. My face. My human face, the face of Edward Masen Jr., fever-red with blood that made me someone else, blood that flushed my cheeks like Bella's, my face that was meant to be hers, meant for her like this face wasn't. The boy I didn't know, silent and half dead of the Influenza, the boy who might have loved Bella like I did and would have made her happy like I couldn't. Green eyes. Burning green eyes that I didn't know. Burning green eyes that I saw in mirrors I half-dreamed when half-almost-sleeping, eyes that lived in Carlisle's mind in pairs of a mother I didn't know and a child I might have been but couldn't remember and didn't own. Green eyes that weren't mine. Green eyes I didn't know. Green eyes that were his son, the good son, the son Carlisle knew in his mind who was good and strong and _good_ and understood the world and knew his mind and didn't taste blood, human blood, glorious, rich, pulsing human blood on his tongue and didn't take and destroy and need. Green eyes that didn't thirst. Green eyes that weren't mine. My eyes were gold. Gold and red and black.

And Bella with green eyes, and I didn't know why, except that she was human, so beautifully human and so full of dreams.

And that blew away the rest. God, Bella. Bella with beautiful brown eyes. Bella cried and her eyes sparkled and she laughed and they did the same. And Bella with red eyes that stared at me from Alice's mind, Alice's visions that haunted me though she was too far away for me to hear them. I felt my thoughts flee the pain of those eyes and embraced the cowardice. I grasped for exits, for anything to blank my mind, a task impossible under normal circumstances, but so much of my mind was closed to me right now—panic, I guessed—that it was almost easy. Carlisle's voice, Carlisle's voice was safe.

"I wasn't sorry, though." The quiet certainty in him that had sustained me for almost a century, sustained me in place of human blood, and the moment of _right_ when his voice echoed his thoughts word in word and there was no more doubt. I knew, dimly, that I needed to reorient myself, to pull out of the thought stream. I sank back into my senses. I closed my eyes hard and opened them again. It was dark. Nothing to inhibit sight, but darkness, and not quite half a moon. The river behind me. My eyes felt half-open. I was having more and more trouble focusing. What had I been thinking about? Why had I stopped? And why was Carlisle telling our story to Bella? "I've never been sorry that I saved Edward."

_My son. My beautiful, suffering son. Edward…_

I felt sick again. I forced my legs moving. There was the door. Standing out here being confused as only Bella could make me was not productive. But why could I not think? What had I been thinking, and why couldn't I focus on _anything_? I felt...unstable. Everything hurt. My mind. My mind hurt. And I couldn't see it. I couldn't follow.

I heard Carlisle's thoughts flit to me as he heard me enter, a moment's instinctive recognition and back to focus on Bella. I heard his deliberate, professional, unshakeable smile. "I suppose I should take you home now." And the equally clear instruction to me—_that means you, Edward._

I could see Bella's head, the back of her head, in the bright light of the kitchen. Her hair went gold, just a little, around the edges in the glow. I pushed my focus issues aside. I wasn't about to lose it and snap, and that was all I needed. I couldn't smile like Carlisle could, but I wasn't going to march in and announce that I seemed to be going mad. "I'll do that."

Bella startled in her seat, then frowned, and I beat myself internally and pressed all the considerable power of my mind into ignoring the chill that was truth, the truth I'd waited eight months for—Bella didn't want to see me. Bella was finally afraid of me.

"Carlisle can take me." I caught the stiffness that gripped me and refused to stop walking, one step, another step. I kept my face blank. That was fine. It was hardly surprising, after what had happened here. Of course Bella didn't want me to take her home. She was terrified. For all I knew, while I'd been chasing Jasper and trying to locate my functioning ability to think in a straight line, she'd asked Carlisle to take her home so she didn't have to sit in the car with me. Why Carlisle hadn't _said_...but it didn't matter. This was something I should have anticipated. Accounted for. Bella was terrified and I had stalked in here and…I would make this okay. At least she wasn't screaming. It could be worse. At least she trusted Carlisle. I couldn't expect things to be okay tonight, and—

_She wants _you_, Edward. _My eyes snapped to Carlisle's without thought. _Bella__'s__ concerned because her blood's hurting you. She hates to cause you pain. She isn't afraid._

My eyes met Carlisle's before I could stop them and I couldn't look away, like every day, every day for eighty-six years I could never look away. He knew the question there, the one I couldn't ask in words without alerting Bella—are you sure? I didn't need to ask how he knew anymore—some things Carlisle just knew, just like he just _did_ overcome the need for blood, just like he just refused to be a monster. Just like I just couldn't. _I'm sure, Edward. _No doubt. _I promise. You should take her home._

I held his gaze a hard moment of hesitation longer. I had never mistrusted Carlisle, not in eighty-seven years. I had left him, I had hurt him, I had ignored him and betrayed him and betrayed his trust, but I had never doubted his honesty. Given the state of my own mind, now was hardly the time to start. If he was sure, then I was sure. I nodded enough for him to see—a flicker of the eyes up and down that he would have missed if he hadn't been waiting for it. So she was afraid of hurting me. Of all the…I forcibly contained my frustration. This shouldn't surprise me. I knew this. I made the effort to breathe evenly, to seem relaxed. I knew that she was like this, I'd known it almost as long as I'd known her. I _knew_ she always, always worried about others before herself with the kind of angelic selflessness that was almost a fault…a beautiful, admirable fault. My head just wasn't working. "I'm fine," I managed, dragging my focus back to Bella. I'd done quite enough to her tonight—today—this year?—already. I didn't need her worrying about me any more than she already was, and that meant that I had to look sane. I gathered myself as best I could. I raised my eyes and forced myself to look at her. And I realised why the scent was still so strong, why I couldn't stop my breath from hitching—the blood had soaked into her clothing. Her shirt was half stained red. Blood, devastating human blood, _that_ blood there, in my sights…The need roared through me, the snarl that told me to rip it from her and taste it, taste that relief, the perfect, perfect relief, and—it whispered, it roared—without hurting her, without any need to hurt at all, just sitting there for the taking like…

_Edward!_

Alice's voice? Alice. I blinked. A little over a mile away. And rows of images in her mind, and two hastily shuffled back, but she couldn't hide from me when she was trying so hard to talk to me...I felt sick.

Carlisle's voice, calm, firm, sharp, silent—_Edward, look away from the blood._

Carlisle. Oh God, Carlisle. Words. I needed to say something before Bella saw what Carlisle had already realised. Before Bella imagined what Alice had seen. Even though she already knew. Even though Carlisle said she already worried about the burn snarling in my throat, in my mouth, on my lips. I made myself find her face as my instincts tore me in three. I needed to get that blood away from me. I needed to get me away from that blood. I needed to _focus_. "You'll need to change anyway," I reasoned quietly, refusing to let my voice strain, not daring to speak louder, to move. "You'd give Charlie a heart attack the way you look." Not to mention possibly end up with me trying to eat your shirt. Or worse.

_Hold on, Edward, I'll be there in a second._

Alice. Bella was frowning at me. Worried. Worried, damn it all to hell…

_Edward!_ Carlisle.

Golden eyes sharp, and commanding me and knowing, believing I would listen. I forced a voice from my burning, tearing throat. "I'll have Alice get you something."

Burning. Burning. And right, right there…

And Bella's eyes. Bella's eyes looking straight at me and knowing everything.

My mind was blank as I turned quietly around and left. I couldn't think as I walked out of the room, or as I stepped back into darkness, as I faintly registered the moon crawling by above me one half light and one half darkness. I wasn't even sure how I'd started walking—my mind had deserted me.

My mind had deserted me, and Bella knew everything, and there was nothing I could do.

Alice met me half way to the river. I looked around. It was there, the river, a few seconds forward. The house behind me. Alice was staring at me. _Where are you going?_

"I need you to find Bella a clean shirt."

She looked at me curiously. "Okay." She didn't run for the door, just pulled my arm until I turned around and then walked, fingers pressing into what had been a bicep and was now another lever of reinforced stone. "Are you okay, Edward?"

Okay? My mind had deserted me, my blood instinct was straining against the rest, Bella was bleeding in my kitchen thanks to my utter failure to protect her even from my own family, and everyone in the general area, Alice, Carlisle, even Bella, even Bella who should never have known any of this, knew that I was falling apart. Everyone knew that I was failing. Bella knew I had failed her, Bella knew I was failing her, Bella knew I would always fail her.

"You look like a zombie, Edward."

I turned back to Alice. "That's not funny."

"It wasn't meant to be." We stepped in the door and the smell of blood was in the next room now, but it lingered in here. "You know this morning I told you no stoic glaring at Bella? That still stands, Edward."

She sprang ahead of me as we reached the lounge, and I let her go. It was strange how slow everything seemed, how quiet, how dolorous each second passing without the presence of thought to process time, to fill it, to give it meaning.

Alice laughed and Bella did too, weakly, and they were going up the stairs. I stared after them. Carlisle and Esme were staring at them, at me, but I had very little to say. I never had, really. I had never known what to say to them. I had left them wordless one night in 1928, quietly while they were together, and there had been plans in my head, speeches, words I would throw at them in anger and none had passed my lips because I couldn't say them, and it was easier to leave in silence, and too easy to say it was because I was trying to be kind, and not because I was ashamed, 'cause I wasn't ashamed, not then, or that was what I yelled silently, wordlessly, as I left them behind. I had stepped up to their doorstep in silence four years later and tried not to look at them, because I knew Esme would see my eyes and be horrified, and Carlisle would see the proof of my sin and see my betrayal and shut the door. It was a hard time to remember, because shame, and fear, and loneliness and horror and hopelessness as glaring as they were held very little to the universe of pain consuming my attempt to turn my eyes back to gold. I hadn't wanted them to see the red—to see what I'd become. I'd tried to win back the clear eyes that haunted my thoughts, my father's eyes, clear of all sin, but it was pain, screaming instincts, and I was too weak, I was too weak alone, and the temptation was too great. My eyes were still red-gold when Carlisle opened the door of one of Esme's beautiful, white houses, the mottled shadows of two months living on animals after four years of death. Two months I had managed, but I was breaking alone, and it wasn't enough. I couldn't turn them the rest of the way on my own, not me, and I knew I needed him, like I'd always needed him, but there was nothing to say, nothing that could deny what I had done or forgive it, so I stood wordless on their doorstep and begged God to forgive me, because Carlisle had always believed that God was that forgiving, that full of love. And Carlisle stepped out the door and took me in his arms and pulled me inside, and both their arms were around me, and I couldn't understand, couldn't understand at all but we were all wordless, and their scent was something I had lost, and in their thoughts the words I had forgotten came back to me, _love_ ringing in my head like church bells and warmth and thought and something that I'd forgotten. _Love. Love._ Love like a prayer, like a wordless, silent prayer.

"Edward."

This was not wordless. I turned slowly, and I didn't want him to see me, like I hadn't then, though there was no red in my eyes, though there hadn't been in seventy-two years.

"Bella's fine, Edward, but she needs some sleep." Words. Calm, firm. She only lost a little blood, and there's no serious damage. She's in some shock. She's very worried, and she's upset, but she'll be perfectly okay once you take her home and let her get some sleep. Do you understand me?"

This tone I hadn't heard in some time. I had been a newborn. I had been fighting the red in my eyes fifteen years later. I had been fighting the red in my soul nine months ago. Did I look that bad? Yes, I did. I was that bad. I had been weak. I had been fallen. I felt that bad. "Of course, Carlisle." It didn't feel true. Nothing in me did.

I didn't flinch when Esme's arms closed around me, but it felt like I did, felt like I should. Flinching inside me, for no good reason. "I'm so sorry, Edward." Her arms were tight around me, tight even for me. "Edward, darling, look at me." I looked down. Esme seemed so small. "You know Jasper didn't mean it, Edward. You must tell Bella we all feel so terrible—" I cut her off with a thumb against her lips like I hadn't in a very long time. My mind filed absently. She hadn't been this upset—when I hadn't been equally agitated—since…decades. I nodded firmly, feeling her eyes on me like duty and _right_. "I'll look after her, Esme."

She smiled that soft, shaky smile that she used to wear almost all the time, years and years and years ago, the one that used to break Carlisle's heart, the one that I didn't understand for a long time. "I know you will, Edward. Of course you will." She squeezed me tightly again, face resting against my chest, heartless, bloodless as she had been as long as I'd known her, human as she'd become with each year she gave to Carlisle, and inhuman as we would always be.

I nodded again as I glanced back up at Carlisle. "I'll look after Bella. Neither of you should worry." Esme nodded again, smiled more brightly as she stood away from me. I swallowed the words deliberately, etched them into my skin, set Esme's smile into my empty, racing head. I allowed, I breathed through Carlisle's quiet reassurances in my mind, whispered almost beneath the level of conscious thought the way he'd learned to do as he recreated me, remade me from the monster I'd become.

I raised my eyes to his once more, made my voice firm like his. "We'll be fine." And he met me unflinchingly, and I promised it to him again silently, just as I'd done for so long, the way we'd always been. It was so easy to draw strength from Carlisle. He was so very strong. So much stronger than me. "I'll protect her," I spoke to his eyes, and he smiled barely, the same way he always did, and I knew I could protect her because she was my life and I had promised it to Carlisle and so I would. I loved Bella, I loved her with all my heart. She was my humanity, she was my soul, she was all the love Carlisle wanted me to have inside me, the love _I_ wanted to have inside of me. She was everything I needed to be. She was my angel. My perfect, loving angel. I would protect her. Nothing bad would happen to her, not anymore.

I blinked several times and readjusted my thoughts as she actually appeared on the stairs. Protect Bella. Right. This I could do. I was not going to be distracted anymore. I _would not _stray off the path again. Right now, I had to get Bella home so she could sleep off her shock. I waited 'til she reached the bottom of the stairs, not wanting to rush her, before opening the door.

The moments that Alice spent holding us up with pathetic attempts to pretend we hadn't completely destroyed Bella's day were tense ones. I sifted carefully through thoughts, pinpointed my brother's exact location, checked and rechecked the impulses, the motives, the intentions shifting in his mind and Rosalie's and Emmett's. I reached beyond them, piled through other thoughts, sought weaker signals, then turned to sensory perception and drew in the scents of the forest, soaking pine needles and shades of blood. We were alone. The night was not hostile. Jasper was not close, and not coming any closer. It was safe. Bella was perfectly safe.

_Are you ready, Edward?_

Carlisle's quiet patience, understanding that bit at my pride but that I had given Carlisle alone the right to long ago. I turned my eyes back inside and nodded invisibly, the codes that Alice and I used every day but rarely spoke about—Jasper didn't technically know they existed—that Carlisle and I had once used daily when the two of us had been a pair and then a three. Things had broken after that, and I had been too ashamed to allow myself the familiar for a long time.

_Will you be alright alone with her?_

I felt the snarl forming on my face, though I'd done more than enough to deserve the question. I fought it down. Nod invisibly once more. It was idiotic to be territorial and defensive about Bella with _Carlisle_, of all people. He'd had so much faith in me, from the moment he'd seen her in my eyes.

I waited in silence as Carlisle placed a light hand on Bella's shoulder, glanced once more, quickly at her arm, bade her goodnight, his thoughts more on me than on her. I kept my face deliberately, forcibly blank. I was out of patience with my family worrying about me when we—mainly I, but all of us to a lesser degree—had so sickeningly crashed through Bella's birthday like the monstrous creatures we were. When she had been preyed upon and hungered after and torn apart like…she walked past me without a word. I left Carlisle to shut the door. Thankfully, Bella's quick, direct walk to the car was sufficiently human that it took me less than a measurable instant of time to put myself by her side. My senses tore on the edge of awareness, as living as I could make them without awakening the hunt in me. Bella was close, right by my arm, and whatever came, from behind, from in front, should some monster appear from the air at her other shoulder I was quick enough and strong enough and _present_ enough to protect her. I let one corner of my mind repeat that mantra for the space of seconds that it took us to reach the truck. I remained behind her, the truck at her front, and reached over her shoulder to open the truck door. I swept the inside with all my senses in the moments it took her to move her body the step toward the cab. I tried to breathe normally. She was safe now. Everyone was safe now. It didn't stop me moving faster than usual—faster than there could possibly be any need to—around the truck to enter myself. I gave myself one more breath once the door was shut. There was no perceptible danger within three miles, at the least. Bella was inside a closed and locked truck cab, and while that would pose no barrier to anything strong enough to risk coming near me, the thought and the action it would take anything to tear through the door would be more than enough time for me to make sure it would have to tear through me before it got anywhere near Bella. Bella was safe. Bella was safe. I turned the key and started the car down the long, empty, danger-less drive.

It took all of three seconds once I had convinced myself of Bella's safety to begin wishing that driving could seize more of my attention. The night was silence. Silence and her presence beating waves of heat and longing and _her_ from inches away and everything was wrong. The world creaked on and off, and she was here, and only her, and God I needed a distraction. A distraction. Any distraction. There were small creatures, bland smelling creatures outside, the wind in pine needles and more beautifully racing the mountain crags, there was the river, the white noise that was a constant background, flowing inevitably on, for as long as we allowed it. The truck was as exceptionally loud as ever, the rattle in the engine grated and the poor tires rubbed cheaply against the less-than-smooth road. I could hear the muted rustle of the ribbon—the birthday ribbon—that Bella almost certainly thought I hadn't seen her stuff under the seat. I could hear the friction between my clothing and the leather upholstry, between my hands and the wheel, the shift of each moving part in the pile of junk that was this damn truck crunching and moving and snarling at me out of the quiet. But in this silence, in this empty, cursed silence there was no sound nearly so loud as her breathing, and no sound but her breathing nearly as loud as her heartbeat, and the two made it impossible to think and impossible to breathe and so impossible to _be_ that I almost longed for Alice to come hold an idiotic, meaningless conversation with Bella so that I could break down quietly and not trouble the poor, poor, helpless angel upon whom I had inflicted myself so masterfully that she didn't even try to escape.

"Say something."

I caught my breath—her voice surprised me. The only voice that could surprise me. Don't. Break. I breathed through the panic, through the smothering silence and the closing beat of her heart. "What do you want me to say?"

I couldn't look at her face. I couldn't look at what I'd done. "Tell me you forgive me."

For one long moment, that distraction came—I was completely bewildered. And then I was furious. I felt the cracks shattering my control. "Forgive _you_?" The words were out before I had time to think them. "For what?" I struggled fiercely to find control. She didn't just stay. She didn't just not _try_ to escape. She blamed herself. She somehow, somehow crazily thought _she_ had done something wrong?

"If I'd been more careful—" quiet, so quiet, like fear and shame and broken, because it was, because I'd made her afraid and broken her so thoroughly, so perfectly that she was ashamed of her own beautiful, flawless humanity. "Nothing would have happened."

I was a monster. I was the most unspeakable, most foul monster. I gritted my jaw. "Bella, you gave yourself a paper cut." I made my voice as firm as possible. She _would_ understand this. I would not let this stand. I glanced sideways—I knew she couldn't be allowed to see all that was in my eyes, but I needed to make this clear. She didn't look convinced. I tried to stay calm. "That hardly deserves the death penalty."

No hesitation. "It's still my fault."

Oh yes, how well I had trained her. I felt it breaking. I felt it all breaking. Her heart beat in my ears, and her quiet submission burned, and I wanted to smash the universe. "Your fault?"

Her nod was imperceptible—probably subconscious. My argument formed itself in my head without thought. Hasty. "If you'd cut yourself at Mike Newton's house, with Jessica—" and she'd be better off with that sniping parasite than with me, she'd be better off with the foul, sick-minded intentions that were just about Newton's whole mental capacity—"there, and Angela and your other normal friends," friends who didn't hear her heartbeat quicken and burn for it, friends who didn't swallow thickly, lick their lips with each pump of glorious, sacred blood, "the worst that could possibly have happened would be what?" I felt the words coming out without my consent, and knew I was speaking direct from thought, and knew it was bad and knew I couldn't stop. "Maybe they couldn't find you a bandage? If you'd tripped and knocked over a pile of glass plates on your own—" because, sick and pathetic and unworthy though Newton undeniably was, he didn't routinely go around throwing girls into piles of glass and tearing their arms open thanks to animal instincts that belonged to monsters "—without someone throwing you into them—even then, what's the worst? You'd get blood on the seats when they drove you to the emergency room?" Or maybe the monsters would smell it from across town and we could all come racing to kill the lot. There was a morbid satisfaction in the idea of killing Newton. I made myself sick. I choked out the rest of the truth, forced the words into the air. "Mike Newton could have held your hand while they stitched you up—" not run away, not run into the forest and across the river, not run then come back and then had to run again because _it_ was too strong, because it was too much, because I was too pathetically, monstrously weak "—and he wouldn't be fighting the urge to kill you the whole time he was there." My breath felt heavy. Bella's sounded heavier. Her heartbeat was like the end of the world. I struggled for sanity. "Don't try to take any of this on yourself, Bella." I heard her always-sacrifice coming before she could think it. "It will only make me more disgusted with myself." Because she would never be disgusted with me. Because I had made that impossible. Because I had shamelessly seduced her, and now she was helpless and there was nothing I could do to change that back.

"How the hell did Mike Newton end up in this conversation?"

I could hear that she was angry—she wasn't hiding it—but she wasn't angry at me, she wasn't angry at what I'd done, she wasn't pushing me away. She was furiously trying to take my blame, to protect me, because I'd destroyed her capacity for all other options, and I couldn't fight the pain long enough to fight for her. "Mike Newton ended up in this conversation because Mike Newton would be a hell of a lot healthier for you to be with," I growled out of a jaw I couldn't unclench.

"I'd rather die than be with Mike Newton." I felt a low laugh somewhere in the back of my mind and hated that anything in me could almost smile. Her voice was fierce. "I'd rather die than be with anyone but you."

And it was true. This was my sin. This was what I had done. I felt the strength to argue draining out of me like blood. _My_ voice was pathetically weak. "Don't be melodramatic, please."

"Well then, don't you be ridiculous."

And I let it stand, because I couldn't do anything else. I had bound her to me, broken her to me, tamed her to me with all the utter helplessness that she had always had in the face of what I was. And there was no argument I could fight with. I had possessed her despite myself, and now it was done. I spent the rest of the drive letting it all drain away. There was nothing I could do. Nothing I could say would make her leave me. Nothing I could say would give her the sight to hate me for what I was, for what I'd done. It was as it was. I was tired.

By the time I slowed the truck, my mind had cleared itself out, and all thoughts of anything were blank or hidden. I knew I should care about the hidden parts, but it was difficult to focus. The vampire mind was complex in ways that a human could not imagine, and mine was broader than most. I was trying to work around the barriers and bring those parts eluding me to consciousness when I let the brake halt us in Bella's drive way.

It didn't really surprise me when she spoke—it just hurt. "Will you stay tonight?"

Forgiven so easily. But changeable or no, I would not use her that way. I would not lay in her bed when I had been too weak to stay by her side, when her flesh still bled by my hands. I kept my voice neutral. "I should go home."

"For my birthday." Sweet. Soft and so sweet and _tempting_, tempting to parts of me I couldn't stop.

I felt sick. I felt so, overwhelmingly sick. "You can't have it both ways," I reasoned quietly, carefully. Twisted as it was, her request—not request, plea—was genuine. Begging. It would be cruel to hurt her. I tried—I forced myself—to smile, or at least to sound like I could. "Either you want people to ignore your birthday or you don't. One or the other."

She smiled. God, she smiled. "Okay." Sweet and beautiful and giving herself freely as she had from day one. "I've decided that I don't want you to ignore my birthday. I'll see you upstairs." And she swung herself out of the car before she'd finished the sentence. No chance for me to argue. She was devious when it didn't involve her own health and wellbeing.

For one long moment I wavered. This was wrong. This was profoundly, inescapably wrong. I had forced her into danger against her will, dragged her to my house and family where she did not wish to be, put her in the face of a thirsty vampire, seriously injured her in my out-of-control instinct to defend and then been so desperate to kill her for my own pleasure that I'd had to leave her alone to suffer. Twice. I could not go to her bed. It was despicable to consider it. Even in her state, even helpless as I had made her, I didn't understand how she could want that, after all that had happened since we left here this evening. But staying away had never helped Bella, never, however much I wished it could. From the start, staying away had only ever caused Bella worry, worry and danger, and I didn't need to cause her any more worry tonight. If I was here, at least I could look after her. There was hardly much I could do to make things worse. Here, I could ensure her arm was fine, make sure she slept comfortably, fetch her painkillers if she needed them. I could sing her to sleep if the nightmare I had created for her made her afraid to shut her eyes. I could stay across the room in her chair—that would not be so contemptible. That would be fine. If Bella wanted it, I would stay. I would look after her. It was the least I could do.

Of course, in the seconds it had taken me to make that decision, Bella had managed to find more sacrifices to make in my name. I breathed deeply in and out once as she reached back into the cab for the two small parcels, grey in the half-darkness. My voice sounded relatively unstrained—that was something, at least. "You don't have to take those."

"I want them." Even _she_ didn't look convinced, and I wondered for a moment whether there was an opening here for me to win one—to change something, a small recompense. It was too late to let her stay home as she'd begged—I could at least take back the gifts she hadn't wanted. "No you don't," I argued firmly, determined to do _something_ right today. "Carlisle and Esme spent money on you."

Her retort was wry, a poor attempt at eagerness. "I'll live."

There were a dozen replies in my head—most of them more bitter than Bella deserved to have thrown at her. She didn't need to suffer my anger at myself. I had just about opened my mouth with one—'you don't want presents, and you're not taking them', simple and to the point—when I realised how that sounded. I couldn't grab her presents back from her and refuse to let her have them. What was wrong with me? She didn't want gifts _because_ of the delusion I'd forced her into. She didn't want gifts because she believed she was unworthy of me. For me to encourage that, even to make her happy, was disgusting. This was how I'd landed myself here in the first place—allowing her delusions for the sake of her happiness. Delusions that stemmed from my nature. Delusions born out of her vulnerability as my natural prey. I shook my head and made myself focus. Of course she should have the gifts. If she was going to put up with me, she was going to get as much back for it as she could, even if that was just a trip to visit her mother and the best expression I could make of my complete devotion. Because I did love her. I loved her with every fibre, every inch, every cell in my body, and it didn't stop it being wrong, but it was something. She may have fallen helpless to me, and there may be nothing I could do about it, but I _was_ devoted to her, devoted like surely no one had ever been devoted to anyone, and that had to mean something, even if only something small. Of course she would have her gifts. I beat myself internally for considering forcing them back off her—what was wrong with me?—and wondered briefly whether her poor lie had in fact been more scheming—reverse psychology, perhaps. It didn't matter. She had finally made it out of the car—I was alerted by the sharp crash of the door—and she was trying to carry them with her elbow against her body because she needed to open and shut doors and I had made her other arm inoperable. I most resisted cursing under my breath as I left the cab and rounded the truck and pulled both packages from under her arm. She began to raise an eyebrow and I explained quickly—"Let me carry them, at least," before she could think I was actually taking them back. I took another deep breath—one of far too many attempts at calm tonight—and ordered my thoughts. I was staying to look after Bella. Right. "I'll be in your room," I confirmed, half afraid now that she'd change her mind—now that I'd remembered that she might need taking care of, going home and leaving her seemed less like the right thing to do.

She smiled like all the angels in any Heaven I could imagine. "Thanks." Quiet. Sweet. Blushing slightly, as usual. She was beautiful. She was unavoidably, undeniably beautiful. And she was mine, for better or worse. I let myself touch her cheek, just with one hand, and it felt so right, so right even though I knew it wasn't. "Happy birthday," I whispered, wishing it had been. And I gave in, and leaned the rest of the way to touch her lips with mine, just lightly, just for a moment, just to keep that smile. Just because she was my angel.

She leaned in as she always did—kissed me as she always did. She was warm as ever, soft, yielding and pressing and eager and _happy_, happy with my touch, happy with my presence, happy with my love. She was happy. She stretched after me when I pulled back to let her go. She loved me. And how could love—how could real, true love—be completely wrong? She was so beautiful. She was so beautiful it was impossible not to smile.

But it _was_ wrong.

I ran before she could see the smile break.

* * *

ooo

ooo

ooo

A/N: Does anyone know where they were living when Edward left and returned? It's in between their time in Ashland and their time in Rochester. I've searched fairly thoroughly and I can't find the answer anywhere, but if I have somehow missed it somewhere, please let me know! And...please review :) Edward and I appreciate it very much…and it might help me get BD Edward to stop battering NM Edward every time he tries to say anything :P The next chapter will, assuming no major disasters, be here come Thursday :-) (though it may not be very long, as my fic hiatus was also a uni hiatus and I now have a month's work of uni, including 5 assignments, to get in in the next week…)

Thank you for reading - you guys are the best readers ever :-)


	12. Chapter 11: Heartbeat

A/N: Well, this chapter is a grand 8500 words, and that's just the chapter, not my notes as well. Which makes it by far our longest chapter yet, by 1500 words or so :-D I'll warn you in advance, if you've found parts of the last few chapters confusing, this probably peaks it. Edward…rambles, I suppose :-P Chaos is taking over. I think you'll understand why though, by the end of the chapter. This chapter is…big, and I'm not entirely happy with parts of it, but I am mostly with the parts that count. I'm a little worried that the middle may be kind of unedited :S Lol…so if it seems that way, please hold out! :S (haha, that doesn't sound too promising, does it? :P I hope it's not that bad :P)

But yeah, the last six pages of this chapter have been in the works a looooong time, lol, a very long time…I really hope you enjoy it. (and if there's stuff that needs editing, please tell me! I couldn't stay awake enough to edit properly today, so I've done the best I can and am posting, lol. But please let me know if anything needs help :-) )

Okay, stopping author noting now :-P This chapter means a lot to me, I guess.

(and I was really, really tempted to call it "Because I had no idea that Florida was sunny." Edward disagreed :P)

(and I have to add one more note – it's two minutes 'til midnight here! I actually have a chapter going up on Australian Thursday for once! Hehe ;D)

o

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Chapter 11: Heartbeat

The edge of the forest was a tangible relief. I slumped inside the tree line, let go breath, let my face fall, knew I was doing something closely akin to human hyperventilation and didn't really care. I needed to compose myself. Bella wouldn't want Charlie to see her arm, which cut my time to a few minutes at most before I should be in her room. I focused my eyes on the window and let it calm me. This place was familiar, the shape of the sky and the way the wind moved through the clouds and each leaf and the patterns of the bark on every tree. The reflections in the glass of Bella's window, the way the paint peeled, each twig of the tree outside her room. Here I had stood hundreds of times, night after night after night. I knew the air here. The dirt. The familiar rumble of Charlie's thoughts and the easily ignored wash of further down the street. The steps creaked almost inaudibly as Bella approached the door. It was unlocked, but I heard the twist of the handle, the working of the hinges, the separation from the frame and the way the exit changed the airflow. The sound of Charlie's game on television a fraction louder. Seattle was losing badly. It was a local station—the commentator was trying to make the best of it. Charlie's thoughts were grumbling about Boston.

"Bell?"

"Hey, Dad."

I could almost have sworn that Bella's breath caught, and the need to just go in—Charlie would hardly be bothered, if I said that I was parked down the street—just to check that she was alright, that the stitches were still fine…

"How was it?"

But it would be foolish. Bella would be upstairs in a minute. I could wait that long—could have a shred of consideration for Bella. If I came in, there'd be talk, and questions, and obligatory politeness that meant Bella and I sitting in front of the Mariners for at least ten minutes, when Bella needed to be upstairs, in bed. Recovering from severe shock. Probably with painkillers.

Bella laughed quietly, strained. She had become a much better liar in eight months. I was an outstanding model. "Alice went overboard. Flowers, cake, candles, presents—the whole bit." Thirsty vampires, pools of blood, arms slashed open and rows of stitches and a smashed cake and a 'boyfriend'—the idea was slightly hysterical—who couldn't stay in the same room…

"What did they get you?"

It was simple to hear that he wasn't watching Bella—most of his thoughts were still on baseball. I was relieved, despite myself, and I wasn't sure whether I should be or not—Bella didn't want him to look at her, and it would be easier, much easier, if he saw nothing wrong, but _she_ saw nothing wrong, and maybe if Charlie would turn around and stop in shock at the rows of stitches clear down her arm, maybe, maybe she might stop for a second and think about the fact that she had been grievously injured tonight, that had Carlisle not been as he was she would have been returning from the Forks Hospital emergency room tonight. Put there by me. Bodily thrown, and roughly, dangerously roughly, into a pile of glass…

"A stereo for my truck." Her voice dragged me from my thoughts and, stupid as it was, a corner of my pride bridled—my entire family had not given Bella _just_ a stereo for her truck. I shuffled the remainder in one hand. Really, with her restrictions on presents, we hadn't given her a whole lot more, which was completely ridiculous. How did I 'respect her wishes' when she asked to be disregarded but drag her against her will into…this was pointless. I knew that this was pointless. But what did that help? What else could I do?

"Wow."

"Yeah."

Apparently the complete lack of gifts did not seem ridiculous to Bella and Charlie. I didn't really have it in me to be surprised. There were days when I thought that Bella's father understood her so much better than I did. It was a highly depressing prospect.

Charlie's thoughts were back on the game. The conversation was at its end. My eyes flickered back to the upper window. I needed to get up there, soon. _Now_, something inserted helpfully, since there was absolutely no reason besides my own cowardice not to be in there already.

"Well, I'm calling it a night." Bella's voice was falsely cheerful—maybe her lying hadn't improved so much—and I heard the shift as she began to turn away. Deep breaths. Long, deep draws of fresh air. The calm before the storm. Anticipation and the sensory recollection of an everyday schedule of agony.

Charlie was barely listening. "I'll see you in the morning."

One footstep, another. "See ya."

And then a flash of thought—turning, Bella's face, tired, an image in Charlie's mind that didn't bother him but ached in me, and then her arm, pinned to her side as the other waved briefly, more a half-salute, and even Charlie could see that the stiffness, the way she held it against her body wasn't natural. I froze, though there was no good or bad I could do from out here. "What happened to your arm?"

But there was no real suspicion. In the casual demand, the narrowed eyes, the space of silence where Bella fumbled for words, there was no anger. No horror. There was no…anything. Sixty, eighty per cent of his thoughts were still on baseball. He was…unsurprised.

I saw in his eyes the way Bella blushed, embarrassment—shame?—I saw the way he was amused, barely, and suspected nothing.

"I tripped. It's nothing."

Nothing. And he believed it, believed it without a second's thought as he turned back to the game, 'Bella' sighing from between his lips in barely concerned resignation that of course Bella would be hurt, Bella was always hurt.

The footsteps picked up again. "Goodnight, Dad."

And Charlie's thoughts were back on the game, Bella barely a ghost and then nothing at all.

She was on the steps now and distracted as I was, I had done this two-hundred times and my eyes took themselves back to Bella's window. My cue. Small things, insignificant heartbeats startled as I crossed the lawn too quickly for human sight, jumped vertically up, opened the glass one-handed—Bella's gifts were still in the other—and swung inside. The sound that I made on landing was audible only to me. She was half-way up, one heavy foot and another, and it was my job to be sitting, already here, by the time she opened the door. It made her smile—it had made me smile, five months ago, the way she startled, jumped and her breath caught and her eyes widened and she blushed bright red and warm—and it made us both smile, now, her face lighting up for no reason but that I was here, I was _always_ here, just as I promised, and I never wanted to be anywhere else. When she slept and woke, wherever she needed me, wanted me, I was already there, never gone, just the same every day and night, _always_. I tried. I meant all of it. And I made Bella smile. And when Bella smiled it was impossible not to.

I placed the gifts in the centre of the bed as she almost stumbled on the top steps, the slide of her foot and then the quiet touch as she caught herself on the rail with her good hand. She could open them before she slept. Distract her from the evening, perhaps. _And it'll be so easy for her to forget being attacked by two fighting vampires_, some mocking voice in a less silent corner of my mind muttered.

I perched on the edge of the bed beside the silver packages and let myself feel the way the blankets pressed into the underside of my legs, hanging off the mattress. She didn't come down the hall. A hand on the knob of the bathroom door, latch and frame and swing and close again behind her. I stayed on her bed as her jeans slid off her legs and I could hear the denim pile on the floor, and the fresh pants she pulled out and the slide of the fabric up her legs, quiet friction on skin. I tried harder than I ever had to try _anything_ not to think about that, since I shouldn't have been there at all, let alone hearing her undress. I heard the catch of breath as she raised her arms above her head, the hold and the tense and the sharp intake again as she pulled her shirt off over the wound, and I focused on that, and that was no trouble at all. It would almost have been a welcome distraction—I was never exactly at my best when Bella insisted on getting changed so _loudly_ in the next room—if it hadn't been Bella in pain. Which, naturally, was not welcome. _Ever._

The shirt was Esme's, not hers, since hers was stained and soaked with blood, her blood that I'd sworn I'd never spill, discarded. I listened to it hitting the floor instead of to Bella's skin, soft breathing shallow, probably with pain. She held her breath again as she pulled on the tank top she wore to bed. It was hurting her. I would have to watch carefully. I should definitely get painkillers. She would have some in the house, so there was no need to leave. I would suggest it when she came in. I was here to minimise her pain. To look after her. I was here tonight to look after her, since she would never look after herself.

In the bathroom, the faucet turned with metal on metal and shifting rubber and the rush of liquid. Downstairs, the crowd cheered and the commentator declared that "the Boston fans think they've won it, but the Mariners are still in the game…". Charlie's thoughts were almost uniform. Bella had left his mind altogether. The bandage had left him unconcerned, then. Bella had tripped—her own fault, naturally. So clumsy—always getting injured.

It was hardly Charlie's fault. She _was_ clumsy. She was…endearingly clumsy. Well, amusingly clumsy, perhaps. But she _wasn't_ clumsy enough to tear half her arm off by _tripping_, just like she sure as hell wasn't clumsy enough to trip down a flight of stairs and through a window and break half the bones in her body. No one was that clumsy. That was just Bella conveniently taking all the blame for me. And Charlie just _bought_ it. Everyone did. It was stupid, it was irrational and childish and stupid but God I wanted him to suspect me. I wanted _someone _to. How could anyone protect her when no one saw anything wrong? Then, how could they if they did? When it was me? It was hopeless, completely hopeless, and someone had to hate me for this, surely. Wasn't that fair?

I tried to reason that however fooled the good people of Forks might be, I was being watched by Heaven, and no one escaped the wrath of God. But I was already damned. I'd been damned for eighty-seven years, so it was hardly new. It was hardly punishment. It hardly made up for _this_, for all of this, all of everything that I inflicted on Bella every day…and would tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Because what could I do? This hadn't been a stupid mistake, a slip, a major flaw. It had been a _paper cut_. I'd meant well. I'd thought that the party would be good. I couldn't have foreseen…even Alice couldn't foresee…and still…so what could I do about anything? If this was all it took, then what could I possibly do? Things would just keep on this way. We'd go to school in the morning, and Bella would blush and explain that she'd tripped, and Jessica would moan overstated sympathy while snickering in her head, and Newton would be just concerned enough that he could still try to use it to his advantage, and Lauren Mallory would make some sniping comment and Bella would ignore it and bear it and carry on with her day. And I would smile and follow her and take no credit, because everything was Bella's fault, not mine. That made sense. That made all the sense in the world. If you were as sick and as wrong and as pitiful as me.

This time the footsteps stopped outside the door. It opened slowly. I couldn't look up. Her voice was quiet, the same whisper as every night, if touched a little—concern, recognition, all the unspoken things we couldn't touch—but not by anger, never by anger. "Hi."

It was a measure of how disturbingly routine that forgiveness had become that I wasn't surprised. At all. "Hi."

She crossed the room more quickly than usual, but honestly trying to analyse what Bella did and why she did it was an empty pursuit that I had long since given up. I let go the gifts as she reached for them…and then was completely lost when she put them back on the bed. It wasn't until she was sitting almost on top of me that I looked up from my own knees and realised that was exactly her intention. I had gotten better at this, much better at this, over the incredible six months I'd spent with Bella, but she still glared challenge right through my eyes as she climbed very deliberately into my lap, and I focused on holding her gaze and not looking perturbed and wished my mind was more human, because focusing on that didn't distract me at all from all the everything that came with Bella shifting around on my legs and settling against my chest and being so unimaginably full of _heat_. I deliberately bent my face into her hair and took one long, agonising breath as she finally stopped moving, barely a weight, but a million sensations of warmth and movement and softness and just _Bella_…so I breathed in, deliberately, and let the pain be the distraction that just trying to think wouldn't. The thirst burned through me like hellfire and eternity and a thousand other things and it worked, it worked brutally well. The rest of my body felt oddly disconnected as I drowned in the feeling from dead heart up, searing throat and searing tongue and searing lips and the battle that was saying no. I let the feeling die away slowly, held my breath, found coherent thought once more. Bella had stopped moving, at least. Mostly. Her fingertips traced all sorts of bliss and damnation across my chest, warmth and the hint of moisture and impossibly light touches pressing through the too-thin cotton of my shirt. "Hi," she whispered again, and I could feel it this time on my skin.

It was a strange thing, to be completely aware of just how weak I had become.

She looked up, and I watched from the corner of my eye instead of looking down to meet her.

"Can I open my presents now?"

Well, that was something. Opening presents had to be less…distracting…than laying herself on top of me. Thank God for small mercies. "Where did the enthusiasm come from?" I asked, almost paying attention. It was difficult to wonder anything past whether she was deliberately tormenting me, shifting and reshifting and reshifting again in my lap like that wearing barely nothing, in the dark, in her bedroom, when I shouldn't even be there at all, let alone touching her, let alone thinking that way…

"You made me curious." She grinned what I could have sworn was wickedly, but almost certainly wasn't. I was delusional as well as completely void of any moral fortitude whatsoever.

I steeled myself to be patient as she picked up Carlisle and Esme's gift—it was hardly anything massive, but she'd refused to talk to me over the suggestion of far less. I didn't realise what I _wasn't_ thinking about until she'd already slid the tip of a finger under the paper.

"Allow me," I cut in, maybe a little quickly, but what I considered admirably calmly, all things considered. I even took the damn thing from her at human speed, once it was clear she had stopped trying to open it. There had been more than enough disaster for one night. And I felt a long, long way from my strongest just this second. I checked the corners of the small box carefully before handing it back to her. I was developing a new respect for rounded edges.

"Are you sure I can handle lifting the lid?" she muttered under her breath, and I had to smile, a little—she hadn't seen me checking. It was so easy to forget human blindness. I fixed the smile in place as she opened the box—I knew myself well enough to know I would want to argue when she protested the gift, and I knew her well enough to know that she'd accept it more quickly if I restrained myself and let her exhaust her objections. I was, however, beginning to worry when ten seconds passed and she was still staring in silence at the tickets. By the time she spoke I was almost ready to use my hands and turn her back to me before I went mad.

"We're going to Jacksonville?"

I couldn't read her tone—I had never realised how poorly developed my skills were in such basic, basic areas until I'd met Bella. There was no need to read a person's face or voice when their thoughts were clear as day.

I went with caution, kept my voice carefully neutral. "That's the idea."

There was what felt like a very long pause, though it was probably imperceptible to Bella, then she was turning back to me, a completely unexpected grin on her face. "I can't believe it," she breathed, clearly having difficulty remaining quiet, and the smile looked real, very real. "Renee is going to flip!" she exclaimed in a whisper, and I felt the smile touching me, though mostly I was just feeling something like shock. I hadn't seen Bella happy like this, excited, enthused since a month before her birthday. The last few weeks had been one long string of misery and doubt and arguments and guilt and fury and while there'd been plenty of times Bella wasn't angry at me, she was generally either just subdued, or distracting herself by tempting me more than I would once have believed possible. This…happiness, bright eyes and her glorious smile…her happiness had always been a revelation to me, but it was cool water and tangible relief after weeks on edge. I tried not to glow too obviously.

"You don't mind, though, do you?" she rushed, words tripping over themselves in her haste. "It's sunny, you'll have to stay inside all day."

Because I'd had no idea that Florida was sunny. I held back my grin. "I think I can handle it." The smile was curving my lips despite me, and I still felt a little dazed by the sudden change in mood—if Bella could have done anything more surprising to me, I didn't know what it was. Understanding her was…I shook my head, trying to catch up with my own mood. "If I'd had any idea that you could respond to a gift this appropriately, I would have made you open it in front of Carlisle and Esme." Though there was a lot to be said for the way one hand had come back to rest on my chest, her face almost peaceful, excitement, real joy in her eyes, and for once, for once I had really made her happy, I'd managed _not_ to screw something up…she rested her cheek once more against me, blazingly warm through my shirt, and I shook my head clear, minutely. "I thought you'd complain."

She laughed quietly, and I could feel her head moving in time against me, and the breath rushing unevenly from her lips, and beneath it the pulse in her flushed cheeks "Well, of course it's too much," she qualified, looking up at me without moving away. "But I get to take you with me!"

My mind was _blank_. Dazed did not even cover it. She was still in my lap, warm and soft as water and the pressure of her palms and her cheek pressed against my chest and she leaned back, just a little, and the warmth was a flinching loss but her smile was so very, very worth it, and the look in her eyes, like everything would be alright, like somehow nothing mattered, and peace would be here as long as we just sat, together, and I watched her smile…

I laughed a little unsteadily and tried to reaffix my head to my body. I felt a lot like what I knew teenage schoolboys sometimes did, and I couldn't really object. "Now I wish I'd spent more money on your present," I murmured, inches from her face, and soundly wishing I'd bought her Canada, or at least a large group of islands. She glared half-heartedly, and it made the smile breaking through underneath all the more glorious, because I'd seen the real glare, the one that shot me through, more than enough times this past month. But this was real too. The happiness was just as real. "I didn't realise that you were capable of being reasonable," I laughed quietly, and she smiled at me again, burning into my eyes, teeth pressing her bottom lip just barely as she looked right at me, held me there, knew me.

This time I caught her hand before it had lifted far off the bed, and carefully eliminated all risk of paper cuts. The gift inside looked pitifully small, and it was enough to thoroughly dampen my mood—it was almost physically painful to give it to her, like this was all she was worth. It was an effort not to cringe away. A harsh reminder that Carlisle and Esme's gift, not mine, had made her so happy. My gift for her had cost all of forty cents.

"What is it?" she asked, puzzled, and I could hardly blame her.

I didn't know how I could _sell_ this—how I could avoid the reality that I'd gotten Bella _nothing_, and she was suddenly feeling receptive. But I _had_ put thought into this. Bella loved my music, loved it more than I could think of any other possession she'd like. That was it. Very simple. So, I stayed simple. I reached slowly, carefully around Bella to her disk player, which was about as functional as her truck. I couldn't help holding my breath, still twisted around Bella to reach the player—everything sounds different on different systems, and I was nervous about the horrendous speakers, though I knew logically that it would take a fair bit to completely destroy these tracks given the quality of my recording equipment.

Then the music began.

It was strange, very much so. I had recorded my music before, but not often, and I'd listened to it even more rarely. Twice, I thought, and not in more years than a human would ever remember. The strangeness of disconnecting this music from my fingertips, music that had only _ever_ been played by me, because none of the others would touch it, it was mine, and it grew from my hands…I knew my hands were moving, just minutely, but I wouldn't completely give up my focus on Bella, not now, and this was about her, not me, so I kept the movements small but it was natural, unstoppable, the shifting of my fingers that on my keyboard, the only one I had played in years, excepting our cousins' instrument in Denali, because I couldn't help myself the foolishness that was carting my piano with us when we moved. This was my music, soaring around us so quietly, impossibly quietly, perhaps more quietly, I thought, than it was actually possible for me to play it…though probably not. It was mine. This air, every breath of this was mine. And it felt good, and it brought my eyes naturally back to Bella.

And Bella was crying. I wished it would not be so completely futile to kick myself.

I rested my fingertips on her cheek, carefully. "Does your arm hurt?" I couldn't believe I'd managed to _forget_ my poorly laid plans, that Bella needed to lie down, that she needed painkillers…

"No, it's not my arm." And she almost laughed it, quietly. I was confused. One would think that after nine months I would be becoming used to 'confused' but it didn't happen, it just became more and more infuriating by the day, because a _normal_ person would understand Bella, but I was so conditioned to rely on thoughts, so totally reliant on my abilities that I simply couldn't, I just didn't have the basic perceptions that any human on the street could boast. With Bella, my mind reading was a disability. I was _completely_ inadequate to look after her, that much was strikingly clear…

"It's beautiful, Edward." Her voice so soft I might have been too distracted, if it hadn't been her voice, that I knew in every syllable, every sound. I tried not to look too panicked as I met her eyes, searched them, and she smiled quietly, gently, as though _I_ needed to be handled with care…

"You couldn't have given me anything I would love more." Each word deliberate, choked a little through the tears that weren't quite falling, but that I always, always saw. Her smile broadened into a glowing, warm, still shining-eyed grin, and she laughed quietly once more. "I can't believe it…"

She was…happy? She was crying because she was happy? I didn't dare believe it. But…it did look like that. Even to my pathetic understandings of anything much, she was smiling, and brushing at her eyes again, and glowing, eyes shifting slowly from me to the CD player to shut softly with a gasp in of breath and open again on me with a look in them that said more than I could let myself accept, more than I could allow myself to believe was really…she liked it. No—not just 'she liked it'. It was right. She was happy. Happier even than with Carlisle's gift, I thought. She was laughing, and grinning, and glowing, all so quietly, with a look of something like awe in her eyes, a look I only recognised because I knew it in my own face, knew it when I looked at her and understood nothing but that I was luckier than I could ever have deserved to be.

She met my eyes again, briefly, and I stuttered out the first thing that came to mind before I could lose it altogether and take her in my arms and never let go. "I didn't think you would let me get a piano so I could play for you here."

Her smile settled softly into something more prosaic, if 'prosaic' had been possible for Bella. "You're right."

I took a long, deep breath of agony and bliss and tried to ignore the agony part. Maybe I really, truly hadn't completely ruined this. "How does your arm feel?"

"Just fine." She winced a little when she said it, and while it was encouraging that she wasn't writhing in pain, I was almost certain that I didn't believe her. "I'll get you some Tylenol."

Her face transformed almost instantly, and her protest sounded remarkably genuine for Bella, but that wasn't saying much. I shifted her gently, quietly away from me and stood.

"Charlie." Bella's voice was all breath, hissed almost, protest in every sound of it, but her annoyance was preferable to her pain. I had to smile at the panic on her face—of all the things to panic about, in the day we'd had…

I put on my most reassuring smile—if I couldn't read Bella's facial expressions, that didn't mean I wasn't significantly masterful with my own. "He won't catch me," I murmured, making sure I spoke the words right into her eyes…then grinned to myself, and decided that it might be altogether more fun to do this fast, _really _fast.

I took a moment, more brief than Bella could perceive, to picture where I'd seen the painkillers in Bella's bathroom. Second shelf of the small cupboard. And the glass from the bench, and water, to take them with. I was a little pleased with myself for thinking of that. And then I pushed the door, just enough that it would open all the way but not quite hit the wall, and ran, something that was usually highly impractical in a space as small as Bella's house, retrieved the items in a move that was instinct with their positions already in my head and couldn't help but grin as I caught the door coming back in, only halfway through its reverse arc.

Bella glared at me very half-heartedly. I didn't lose the grin as I handed over my pickings. I held the glass 'til I was sure she had it in her good hand, and waited for her to extend her other for the pills, slowly, being careful, which was good. She was being sensible, and taking the painkillers without arguing, and the pain didn't seem to be bothering her yet. I noted it all to pass on to Carlisle. And she raised her hand to swallow the pills, and I saw her arm shake, the torn arm, as she lifted her hand to her mouth. Then shake more violently, and every muscle in her body tightened. Her smile slipped. Her breath was still shaking as she swallowed. I tried to keep my own stupid, idiotic grin in place for her sake and it half worked, but not really. Not really at all.

Everything felt painfully, emptily silent. She smiled very deliberately as she shifted to put the glass on the table, and I didn't miss now the way she stiffened each time something moved her arm, the arm that had been pouring blood an hour ago. How I had missed it at all I was not quite sure. _Perhaps if you weren't quite so busy being pleased with yourself_, chimed that helpful voice that I was fairly sure was the pathetic, undead version of a conscience. And, as usual, it was right. Of course I hadn't noticed how much pain Bella was in, that Carlisle's anaesthetic had worn off, that she really did, funnily enough, need to be in bed, asleep, like Carlisle has specifically told me. Of course I hadn't noticed, because I was too busy congratulating myself for making her smile, something that should hardly have been an achievement for the man who loved her, who claimed her, because I had been too busy grinning about proving I could run a few metres faster than a door, when this clearly didn't interest her because she was too busy being in pain, pain that I had, after all, caused in the first place, but that I had somehow, conveniently managed to forget. Lucky me. If only Bella could be so lucky, we'd be set.

What was wrong with me? What had happened to all the focus I'd had outside the window? If I couldn't keep my mind on what was important for ten minutes without Bella distracting me, then how could I possibly be adequate protection for her, how could I possibly look after her like this? I scrabbled furiously for focus. This was not unsalvageable. There was a plan, after all. Bella needed sleep, and now that I had rediscovered a shadow of sense, I was going to get her to sleep in the shortest possible space of time. Words were not coming to me. I gave up. "It's late."

Bella blinked at me like I'd suggested the sky was falling. I was not going to be distracted again, however. I knelt pressed against the side of the bed and lifted her as gently as I could with one arm, gritted my teeth at the very, very obvious way she tensed, almost flinched, pulled the covers back as quickly as I could and laid her back down, trying my hardest to be more wary of her arm. I tucked the blankets around her painstakingly, made absolutely certain to put no pressure on the wound and she didn't flinch, at least, though that was hardly a major victory when I'd been the one to cause the injury in the first place. She was warm, and she was safe, and she was in bed. This was okay.

I contemplated my next move, unused to leaving her still awake, thinking of the chair across the room…and she made a quiet noise of who knew what—warmth? Pain? The utter dependence that was so sickeningly clear in her eyes, in the way she looked up at me now, with every expectation that I would climb into bed next to her despite all I had done? But her eyes glowed with it and what could I do? That gaze, the gaze I couldn't drop, made it quite clear that she wasn't going to sleep if I crossed the room and restrained myself, if I didn't lie with her. Was now really the time to try to start fixing things? When she was already in pain? For better or for worse—or worse, or worse—I _had_ made her this way, I couldn't escape that. It would be cruel now to step away, however wrong it was to stay.

So I lowered myself to my knees on the bed, slowly, distributing my weight so as not to move the mattress, and stretched out, carefully, slowly, and held that gaze a moment longer before swallowing the hate and the pain and the everything _wrong_ in my throat and putting my arm around her.

This was wrong. My skin tingled with her warmth and my throat burned with her scent and my mouth was slick with venom ready to seep through her skin and cause her the unsurpassed agony that would keep a monster of proportions never seen in this world distracted enough to feed from, hardly necessary for a helpless, weak, already defeated human.

I felt sick. And it felt so…peaceful, like being in the eye of a storm. Bella had always been that way for me—the still, unnerving silence in a universe of white noise. This, though…this calm, still destruction…this was so much, so almost like peace. And was this all this could ever be? A moment of peace to treasure, a moment of love, so short in the years of an immortal life, to live for and then die for when she passed and it was over? There was a peace even in that thought. There was a peace in that purpose, in that end. To breathe in the ecstasy of a love I no longer deserved, then to pay for it in death or damnation by fire, to burn to the ash that would stop my body reforming, take me from this world or leave me floating on the breeze. A moment of love to become dust for. A moment of love…surely that was a worthy reason to live.

She shifted closer to me, minutely, and I felt the moment's pain as her arm moved and had no idea what else I could do to relieve it. Her face nudged against my shoulder before she lifted it minutely to lie against me, cheek pressed to the front of my arm, throat curving around the side, pulse throbbing directly against my skin in a way she certainly wasn't aware of, like so many nights. It was hard to think with that pulse beating against my skin, so full of sensation that it was almost a creature of its own, not Bella's, a creature like any other I might kill and drink of and relieve the screaming, searing pain that filled me, that burned through me always, always, always…

"Thanks again."

God. God help me.

There was nothing else to say, and I kept my voice quiet. She didn't need to share my agony. "You're welcome."

I felt ill. I felt more than ill—I felt disoriented, both things I hadn't felt in more than eighty years. My mind was rushing ahead of me, I could tell, because most of it was no longer at my disposal. The feelings from the forest were back, the strange feeling of something hidden, of bizarre alienation from half my brain. But it had changed—I had given up my attempt to reclaim my thoughts while I focused here on Bella, and it was different now to what it had been half an hour ago. There was a quality of…urgency. It put an edge to my disgust, an edge that I didn't want to admit was fear, 'cause I couldn't explain why I should be afraid. I had nothing to fear from anything, so if I was afraid, it could mean a threat to Bella, and tonight, of all nights, surely she had suffered enough.

I put all the force of my will back into reclaiming the closed sections of my mind. I could feel it clearly now, the rest of my multi-functioning brain working, searching, reasoning. Processes running on autopilot while I looked after—or rather, failed to look after—my angel. Assessing options. Making plans. Trying to dissolve the aching that was ripping at my ability to think straight, the need to punish myself for this, the impossibility of inflicting punishment on this cursed body. It was easy to fall back in—I was almost relieved, the conscious part of me, that while I may have been so busy grinning like an idiot that I'd somehow _forgotten_ everything that was wrong, the rest of my mind, my infinitely capable, multi-focused mind had not.

What was I doing? How could I lie in bed with her and say nothing while she gracefully accepted that having already ruined her birthday, I had pushed her into a pile of glass, slit her arm open in an injury that would horrify anyone but her, and exposed her to…I couldn't think about this now. _Bella's still here_, I reminded myself. _Take care of Bella. That's your job. You can think once she's asleep. _It was somewhere between the conscience voice and my conscious voice and something else, but the workings of my mind were not important right now. Wherever in my mind it came from, it was right, and I did what it said. For once in my life, I needed to stop being such a despicable, self-absorbed idiot and just focus on Bella.

"What are you thinking?" A whisper across my skin. God, she was so delicate. So…I set my jaw and forced myself to focus. Bella. Look after Bella. But…what _was_ I thinking? What was my mind hiding from me, refusing to let me see? Why was I so confused? I approximated an answer—as inconsequential as would ever pass for truth. "I was thinking about right and wrong, actually."

Well, I had been asking how I could lie here so calmly…Bella shivered. I very nearly cursed as I tried to pull the blankets more closely around her. I was about to remove myself to the rocking chair where I couldn't hurt her any more when she lifted herself to look at me.

"Remember how I decided that I wanted you to _not_ ignore my birthday?" Her voice was artificially light, and there was an edge of panic. I wondered vaguely what I'd managed to do now. I answered cautiously. "Yes."

She blushed, and venom spilled into my mouth, burned through my system, and I wondered furiously how I could possibly have accepted this as a reasonable reaction to the blood in her cheeks. What kind of delusion was I trying to work here? I was lying in _bed_ with the most beautiful, pure, untainted creature the world could imagine feeling my mouth water because her embarrassment made me want to eat her!

"Well," she forged on, clearly nothing like aware that the man next to her was in fact a bloodthirsty monster who had difficulty focusing on her words through the desire to suck her dry, "I was thinking, since it's still my birthday, that I'd like you to kiss me again."

Venom flooded my mouth at the mere thought. I fervently, chokingly wished I were dead. But _look after Bella_, the mantra repeated itself in my mind. Don't let her know that anything's wrong. I dredged up a pathetic grin.

"You're greedy tonight."

She glared at me—it felt marginally more fair. "Yes, I am—but please," she huffed, "don't do anything you don't want to do."

I could feel myself cracking up; feel every word falling into the understandings hidden in the cracks in my mind. I laughed hysterically, forcing myself to cut it out before I scared her. Everything felt too intense. I exhaled heavily, trying to release the pressure in my head. "Heaven forbid that I should do anything I don't want to do," I forced out before I could process what I was saying. What part of my mind had spoken? And what did I mean? The unforgivable ease with which I did, had always done, exactly as I pleased, using her thoughtlessly, carelessly for my own pleasure regardless of the extraordinary risk to her life? The destruction of her happiness? And I would have believed whole-heartedly it was that selfish, hateful sin that I thought of, but for the dazed, cloudy dimness pulling at the corners of my consciousness, sending me off balance, hiding from me but unable to disappear. The awareness that something was coming. Something I didn't want to do at all.

I felt like I was tilting. _I'm sorry_, something in the corners of my mind whispered. I ignored it, suddenly afraid, hate for a moment buried in a terror I couldn't control. I felt myself tremble as I touched her skin, as I raised her beautiful, trusting, loving, needing face to mine. I felt the twin urges to destroy her and to destroy myself as my lips touched hers and the whole world filled with warmth. I closed in the instinct to twist her head, to take that luscious, heavy warmth pulsing at her neck and drown the screaming pain within. I harshly shut off the urge to open my mouth and take her right now, where I was, to sink my teeth effortlessly into those soft lips and I hated myself and I hated the world and I hated something in my mind that I couldn't quite grasp, but knew I would soon, horribly soon, with a dread that overwhelmed everything.

Bella.

Again and again in my mind.

Bella!

Like the pulse of blood, her name beating in my ears and my eyes and my frozen veins.

Bella. Bella. Bella.

Please.

Please.

_Bella._

I felt my hands slide down the back of her head, my arms close around her, the length of my forearms press against her back, press her to me, and never let go, never…never… never in a million years of death and blood and silence and…and realised in horror what I was doing.

I loosed my hands, terrified for a moment when she didn't move that I had truly gone too far, that oh God no, no!—but she moved against me, and I found the willpower to shift her away before I did any damage. Any more damage. I lay by her side panting unnecessarily. The breathlessness was in my mind. I couldn't look at her. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. What was I doing? What was I thinking? Strands of her hair tangled in my fingers, strands of her beautiful hair that I'd carelessly pulled out and she'd obediently let me. I couldn't think about the way I'd been holding her. Were there bruises on the pale, see-through skin of her back from my hands? Thoughtless, cruel marks that she would never protest, and my thoughts…the things I thought of when she held me that way…I disgusted myself. I disgusted myself more than I had the day Carlisle had forgiven me and welcomed me home with perfect love and the empty offer of redemption. Because this was love and my mind was all blood, and my touch was pain and sin and violence and this was above anything. Because this was unforgivable. This was beyond reason.

She was gasping unevenly, head fallen back on her pillow, neck exposed. What had I done? What was I doing? I deliberately, forcefully, slowed my breathing and observed her a moment. She didn't appear to be upset, or in pain. I forced myself to calm.

I took a deep breath. "Sorry," I murmured, hating that she would accept it and ask nothing more—that she would not have asked even that. "That was out of line." That she would give herself to me completely, that she would accept whatever damnation I gave her, that she would watch me trample over her life, tear her apart and smile shyly and forgive me. I wanted so badly to scream.

She smiled, just a little, cheeks flushed, perfect lips softly curved. Breath coming too fast in and out like a beacon to my senses. "_I _don't mind," she smiled, laughed, forgave.

And I knew. God I knew. Like I always knew.

My mind was screaming. For the first time since that horrendous, unimaginable, unforgivable day in March when I had taken her blood and been despicable enough to enjoy it, I felt myself losing control. Not over my instincts—there was no danger to Bella—but over my mind.

Protect Bella.

I searched for a neutral expression. "Try to sleep, Bella."

"No," she pouted, and her face still made me fly. "I want you to kiss me again."

For a moment, I was blindsided by shock. Shock that filled with need—God did I want to comply. Clearly, she was not upset.

I was not that weak.

"You're overestimating my self-control," I reminded her, selfishly hoping that she might give up, go to sleep and remove the need to resist.

She grinned, blushing furiously. I felt the venom again and forced myself to calm. This was ridiculous.

Her voice was stupidly alluring. "Which is tempting you more, my blood or my body?"

Protect Bella, I chanted silently. Protect Bella. I grinned like I grinned every day. "It's a tie." A tie in so far as my body was ready to press her down on the bed, secure her wrists with one hand and feel every inch of her body against mine, press into her softness, feel her skin beneath my fingers, the smooth, silk softness of her palms and her waist and probably her legs, though I had never touched skin higher than her shins. And then, when I was done satisfying my foul, selfish desires, to slice through that soft, petal-thin skin, drink in her pain to sooth my own and drain away her life for the sake of a few moments' pleasure.

Lured in like the prey that she was. But was never meant to be.

Protect Bella. My voice was surprisingly smooth—always the perfect actor. "Now, why don't you stop pushing your luck and go to sleep?"

The prey that I had made her.

And suddenly I realised.

The dizzy, rocking tilt of my mind. The pulling at despair. The fog, the haze, the what my thoughts were hiding from me.

"Fine," she murmured sleepily, cuddling softly, affectionately, beautifully into my arms, pressing the livid slash that I had caused against my cold, inhuman skin. Trusting me. Loving me. Knowing that I would protect her until the end of the world.

No.

The need to touch her, the desperate need to kiss her and clutch her to me and never let go, to kiss her like I would never have the chance to kiss her again. She shuddered weakly in my arms, and I registered below the level of consciousness the change in vital signs that meant that Bella was asleep.

No.

No.

Because I would never kiss her again.

_No!_ I felt myself scream in silence, eyes fixed on her peaceful, trusting face, eyes gently shut, delicate, soft eyelashes brushing her warm cheek, the smallest frown creasing her lips. No. No.

Protect Bella.

There had to be some other way.

She shifted minutely in her sleep and venom flooded my mouth once more. My hands were too hard on her body, and my teeth were too close to her blood.

I felt the cracks break.

Protect Bella.

"No." I breathed one more time, throat constricted and aching, arms still throbbingly warm around Bella's now sleeping body. "Please."

But the time had come.

And my mind had had the good sense to make the decision for me while I was busy with my angel.

I would not break her. I would not let her be the sacrifice to the animal that I was.

I would not destroy her life.

Protect Bella.

And as much as I longed to keep pleading, as much as my lips moved for the word 'no', they could form only one thing.

"Yes," I nodded stiffly, longing achingly, screamingly to weep. "Yes." I took a deep breath, and fixed my eyes on her beautiful face. "Protect Bella."

This was the end. This was the last time. Never again would I lie in the dark with my angel soft and warm in my arms. Never again would she laugh and blush and smile shyly at my words. Never again would her lips touch mine. Never again would my body urge me to take her. Never again would I all but crush her. Never again would she sweetly forgive me. Never again would I put Bella in danger. Never again. This was the end. This was the last time.

I set my eyes firmly on her closed lids and promised myself that this would be the last I would allow myself. Promised myself that I would not close my eyes all tonight. And promised myself that in the morning, when the sun rose behind the clouds, I would never look at her this way again.

Her warmth in my body.

Her skin on my skin.

Her face in the darkness.

I would remember these moments.

And I would leave her to live.

o

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o

A/N: So this is the end of New Moon chapter 2, and you all know what that means. The decision is made. Hell has arrived. This was a fairly devastating chapter to write (I really should be posting quickly and going off to work on assignments, but I think I might have to go lose myself in FFVII Crisis Core fanfic to recover from writing this thing :P Or fall asleep (passes out)). Anyhow…there it is, for all it is. I truly hope it does justice to all of your experiences of Edward's decision.

Wish me luck for the coming chapters, 'cause I suspect they may just kill me (wry smile…) :-) :-S

And please review! You guys are the most awesome reviewers ever and I love you all lots :D

(oh, and sorry if there were lots of big blocks of text! I tried really, really hard! :S :D Draft 7 of this chapter had 2 pages of solid, completely unbroken text…twice :P So I really did work on it :D :S Hehehe…keep telling me, anyhow, I'll get it right eventually ;D)


	13. 12: There's Pansies, That’s for Thoughts

A/N: I have to begin this chapter with a note on canon. The Lexicon timeline is a little like god to me :P Seriously. But unfortunately, on this particular part of New Moon, it's actually wrong. Believe me, I've double checked like 200 times :P So I know that the timeline says 'it' happens on the 15th, it doesn't, it happens on the 16th. Chapter three really, really clearly goes through three different days, Sept 14-16. Obviously an extra day in there is a major difference for Edward, so I just wanted to clear that up, though it's not a concern just yet :-)

Now that that's said – I think (as I mentioned to a few of you) we need to form an army of all the people yelling at Edward in last week's reviews ;D If we all take up rolled up newspapers and thwack him in a coordinated effort, maybe we can stop him leaving :P It would certainly make life easier on all of us! (sigh) (yes, I'm joking ;D Don't worry, I haven't completely lost it yet :P) Can you tell I'm desperate? :P Edward's head is not a fun place to be right now…heh. What's wrong with us? ;D

This is somewhat shorter than recent chapters, because I looked at my uni schedule on Sunday night and realised I had 3 assignments due before/on Thursday, none of which I'd started. Less than ideal. I have, however, managed to get enough together for an update :-) Rather than postpone a week, I am giving you the first half (5000 words) of this chapter, and the second half will come next week. Thank you so much for your patience with me, and for all your wonderful support. Love you all! Your reviews are, as always, much appreciated (welcome to the people who caught up last week!) :D

(I warn you now, the major plot point of this half-chapter is pretty much a descent into madness. Edward has kind of cracked by 3800 words in. He doesn't so much cope as he just loses it completely. It is not fun, or simple. You will probably want to bash your screen. In a not very fun way. We're all masochists, right? :S Oh, and just so it's super clear, 'it' is not this chapter, or the next. I don't want you guys anticipating it and then getting let down when you're still on the torture run at the end of the chapter :P)

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Chapter 12: There is pansies, that's for thoughts

_There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember; and there is pansies, that's for thoughts...There's fennel for you, and columbines; there's rue for you, and here's some for me; we may call it herb of grace o' Sundays. O, you must wear your rue with a difference. – Ophelia, Hamlet Act IV Scene V_

And so it began—a time of fire in which I came to understand that I was wrong to think I was already damned. There were pains beyond the change—pains Dante had not imagined. There were pains that came from somewhere beyond the body. There were pains that I learned, over long months, to inflict tirelessly upon myself.

ooo

o

My vigil ended with the rising of the sun.

By the time Bella awoke an hour later, mercifully earlier than usual, I had shut off my mind, I had shut off my heart. There was a resolve that felt like ice burning in me worse than blood, and I was doing a reasonable job of ignoring the pain.

She groaned as she opened her eyes, squeezed them shut again, opened them once more and turned to look for me, like every morning. She was clearly in pain. This was not a surprise—she had suffered a severe shock, and been injured so badly that the length of her arm was stitches. I had already taken care of this. The hour after sunrise had been more than enough time to refill the empty glass from last night and fetch more Tylenol. The pills sat neatly on her table. It was time to leave.

And this time, that was it. It was time to leave, and I wasn't coming back, not tonight, not anymore.

It was time to leave.

Even with my mind running on minimal functions, even with my heart safely locked away, this was already harder than I'd imagined.

"Edward…" Her voice was sleepy, syllables slurred, but the concern was there already.

Bella. Bella.

No.

I crossed directly to her bedside, focused on actions, on sequence, on the limited plan I had thus far, which so far extended to making it out the window. She used her good arm to prop herself up, and her eyes narrowed as she looked at me. I pretended not to notice.

"I'll see you at school," I murmured, calmly, directly, just as I'd planned. Her eyes narrowed more. I bent the few inches to kiss her forehead, just to brush my lips to her skin, because I did every morning, and I didn't want to worry her. No other reason. I was strong. I had made my decision. I didn't want to alarm her. I would not do this impulsively. I would form a coherent, sensible plan, and I would follow it.

Her taste burned on my lips.

I crossed the room before I lost even the pathetic beginnings of my plan altogether. I could hear her beginning to speak, but I was dropping through the air before she could form my name. I was into the woods before she could say anything more.

My mind was silent. The whole world felt oddly cold.

Alice was waiting on the doorstep by the time I reached home.

"What's going on?" She didn't sound patient.

I ignored her. "Nothing."

She followed me up the stairs. "Edward Cullen, you come back here this second and tell me what the hell you're doing."

I opened my door and closed it behind me. "I'm changing clothes before I go to school."

The door cracked loudly as she swung it open. "Damn it, Edward! I assume you know what I'm seeing, and I want to know what's going on!"

I filed blankly through my shirts, pushing them one by one across the rack. None appealed. "Nothing's going on, Alice. Leave me alone."

The two and a half images that made it to me from her visions were enough. I firmly blocked out her mind. It dropped to a background pressure. The images blurred and fell away. _Edward, stop it. Now. Talk to me._ The words sounded distant, barely formed, and I knew she was pushing them at me hard.

"Your thoughts are annoying me. I'm blocking them out."

"Well don't!"

I picked the next shirt off the rack—plain, white, long sleeved—and slipped it on. I didn't bother changing my jeans. I didn't wait to button up the shirt. I walked back past Alice and out into the hall.

"You can only ignore me for so long, Edward."

"I'm not ignoring you," I lied.

"I'll ask Bella."

I stopped short. I wasn't sure what, exactly she could ask Bella—a quick survey of her thoughts showed that neither was she—but the few images I'd seen were enough to tell me I didn't want it. There was a sensible, practical, safe way to get through this decision, and I was going to find it in the next ten or so hours. Alice was not going to make this any worse than it already was. "You will not."

"I will."

I turned slowly on the spot and fixed her eye. "You will not."

Her thoughts made me cringe a moment before she spoke. "You look like crap."

I turned back down the stair. "I don't want you speaking to Bella."

And she was following again. "What's that meant to mean?"

"I thought it was pretty clear." I didn't turn around. "Stay away from Bella."

I resisted the impulse to turn and fight as she grabbed my shirt. "No!"

I quickened my pace toward the front door. "If you say anything to her, Alice, I promise I will make you suffer."

My shirt ripped as she tried to turn me and I refused and I cursed and flew back up the stairwell.

"Edward! Whatever it is you're doing, you're wrong! This is a mistake!"

I stood in my doorway, panting unnecessarily, door still open behind me.

"This isn't right, Edward." _I'm afraid._

I shook my head sharply as I returned to my wardrobe and pulled out another shirt. Alice was still downstairs, but I spoke more than loudly enough for her to hear me. "Don't be."

Another white shirt, and back into the hall. I hesitated at the top of the stairs, and hated that I did. I hated that I couldn't meet Alice's eye. I hated that I was more afraid than I'd ever been, and that that was only because still, nothing had sunk in. I hated that when it did, I probably wouldn't be capable of fear, or anything much else.

"Edward?"

I shook my head. My voice was too much a whisper. "Not this morning."

"When will you tell me?"

I shut my eyes a moment and tried to make rough plans in my mind. "Tonight."

She paused only a moment. "I won't be here tonight."

It didn't need words. Jasper had already gone north. Alice had only been waiting to argue this with me. I was glad. This would be easier without her here to cause problems. "I'll call you."

"You're still figuring it out."

I reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped quickly past her. "You don't know what 'it' is."

"I know it's bad. I know you're going to hurt everyone, and you're going to hate it, and you're going to regret it."

I shook my head as I picked my bag up from by the door. "Does that matter?"

I couldn't shift fast enough to stop Alice ducking under my arm and getting between me and the door. "Edward, what could possibly be so important that you'd happily go hurt _everyone_."

I took a deep breath, and forced myself to meet her eye. Games were over. It was time to stop being pathetic. "Do you really still have to ask that, Alice?"

I saw her resolve waver a moment. "I was including Bella in 'everyone'."

She was still in front of the door. I pushed past her, and she wasn't trying hard enough to really get in my way. "I'm going to school."

"It's too early, Edward."

"I don't care." I turned round the side of the house toward the garage.

I heard her voice carrying clear through the walls. "You're making a mistake, Edward."

I threw my books in the passenger seat, slammed the door too hard, drove too fast out of the garage. I didn't answer Alice 'til the house was in my rear view mirror. "No, Alice," I called, too tired to care how bitter I sounded, "I made my mistake some time ago."

And it was long past time to fix it.

ooo

I kept my mind on Alice's as the trees passed, then houses. By the time shops replaced kit homes and poorly renovated brick she was out of range, so I moved on to analysing what I'd seen in her visions instead. There was a lot to work through. The immediate concern was Alice's response—no one else would be stupid enough to argue with the warning I'd given her, but Alice was…special. By the time I pulled into the FHS parking lot, I was almost certain I was safe. She was concerned, but she had enough to think about. Jasper needed her, and Jasper came above me. She would be gone in half an hour assuming no catastrophic visions before then. Once she was on the way to Jasper she wouldn't think about anything else. That assurance, of course, led me back to my greater problem. My plan still didn't really extend beyond getting out the window, and I'd already managed that. No, I corrected myself; I had added one more step. Alice would speak to Carlisle before she left, so even had he not heard our argument, he would be waiting. He would possibly be waiting with some knowledge—not mine or hers, but some idea, at least—of the pain Alice had seen. I had said tonight, and Carlisle and Emmett would hold me to that. So that was locked in. I could delay maybe a few hours after the school day, but by nightfall at the latest I would need something to tell them. An explanation for my shouting at Alice. For what she had seen. The beginnings of a plan, at least.

There would be no one else on the grounds for at least half an hour, so I slid further down in my seat, out of the sightline of casual observers, and tried to think of _something_ coherent and useful. I needed to plan. But I wasn't sure why I needed to plan. How hard could it be, after all? Or rather, because that was an idiotic question, how complicated could it be? It was…I couldn't even say it. How was I going to plan when I couldn't say it? And what was I planning? We had relocated on short notice a dozen times, for various reasons. There was nothing _to_ plan. Just…just…I clenched my fists as tightly as they'd go, fingers unable to sink into ungiving flesh, and focused on breathing, because it wasn't necessary, but it was easier to focus on than anything else. I knew there was nothing to plan. But I needed to do something. Because if I didn't do something, I was going to go home tonight and tell Carlisle we were leaving and we would leave and then we would be gone and everything would be over and I couldn't imagine it, I couldn't believe it, I couldn't make it make sense or even try to see it. My mind simply couldn't…and my mind could do anything. I didn't know what I was doing. I just had to do _something._

I glanced again at my watch. Two minutes. Two minutes had passed. If I could barely get through two minutes alone in the car, how was I possibly going to do this? What was I going to do? I…I just didn't do anything without Bella. I tried to think of things I could do, of things I might have done, and there wasn't anything, nothing that made any sense, not anymore. She was my life. She was…everything. It just…didn't seem logical. For the world to go on without her.

I gritted my teeth and tried to focus. There was no need to think that far ahead. That would just be, once it was done. I didn't need to figure out how the world would go on, because it would do so regardless of me. I did need to get through today. Okay. I could do that. The most important thing would be to remain calm. Let no one see that anything was wrong. Appear sane, rational, normal. Cover the fact that I was barely functioning. Cover the fact that I barely felt coherent, let alone normal. It couldn't be that hard. I was a very good actor, and very few people had anything to do with me. I doubted many students would notice if I was slightly out of character. Even at lunch, it was extremely rare for anyone to look my way. Angela Weber, on occasion, but I was not so good an actor that I would look particularly appealing to speak to today, and I wasn't going to try. There was little chance of anyone trying to hold a conversation. I would be essentially alone all day. Well, but for the vital point. I restrained the urge to growl at my own pathetic cowardice.

Because I wouldn't actually be alone, of course. The grimace twisting my face felt oddly comforting. An expression I could understand. The idea that I would be alone was a very, very poor attempt to talk myself around the truth. I was never alone, not now. I had been alone most of my life, but not for the last nearly seven months. There would be conversation, and company, and someone who would notice very much that I was completely out of character. There would be Bella.

For one brief moment I considered restarting the car and turning back for the house. But the thought of the house stopped me short, because at the house would be waiting Carlisle and Esme, and probably still Rosalie and Emmett, waiting to hear my story. At home, my deadline was waiting, and I would need to tell Carlisle that things had changed. I would need to tell them…that we were leaving. Leaving. There it was. The word. We were leaving. Now. And then I would have to leave. And I couldn't do that in the next five minutes. I would, I truly would, before the end of the week, in fact, I really, really, just…not without…I hadn't even seen her face again. I hadn't left the room this morning intending it to be the last, not really, and I couldn't, it was hasty, there was really no need, I was panicking…

I tucked my head down as best I could into my chest and tried to swallow my breathing, too fast, too heavy. There was time. I had time. I didn't have to leave the same moment as my family. Alice and Jasper were gone already. I would speak to Carlisle tonight, the others would make the move tomorrow, and I would have time. I would do what I needed to do to leave here, to drag myself away, if that meant burning the house or crawling away on my hands and knees by the inch. I would make it work. I had a mind with the power of ten human ones, and I could make anything work. So it would. It would just have to.

I spent the next fifteen minutes going over options in my mind. I would need to explain this to Carlisle sensibly, firmly. I would need to do it without wavering, without breaking down. I would need to tell them this with the authority I had as second in the family, as Carlisle's first and longest partner. For any of that to happen, I would need to rehearse. I juggled phrases in my head, switched and reswitched, repeated the same words over in my mind until I could almost say them. Leaving. Leaving. We are leaving. The time has come for us to leave. It made my whole body tighten, my throat constrict, my voice sounded strange and tight but I could say it, just. And I had ten, maybe eleven hours to get it right. By the time night fell, I would be strong. I would be resolute. I would make very clear that there was no room for argument, and Carlisle would know that I was right. I would leave Alice until after it had been decided, and by that time whatever she could say to Carlisle and Esme would be too late. I would ignore whatever visions she tried to throw at me. The visions I had seen—the visions I would see yet—were things I had to accept.

They were not kind scenes. I would be in immense pain. That was clear, even with only the sound and image that Alice received. I knew what pain looked like. But I had already agreed to this, confirmed with myself. I was prepared. My pain mattered very little. I had spent long enough sacrificing _her_ to allay my pain, and now I was willing to suffer to fix it. I could suffer. I had suffered before. I was always suffering. I would cope. It would be done.

The harder image was the one I had been less prepared for, though not unaware. Bella's face was…gaunt. Shadowed. Eyes red, swollen, gazing into nothing. She shook. Violently. And then stilled. There were flashes, flashes in Alice's mind and they changed little. These hurt me far more than the others. I would hurt Bella. I would hurt Bella more perhaps than I ever had. I would devastate her. But, again, even as I buried my head in my chest once more and tried to tear gashes out of my palms because I didn't want to destroy the car, I knew this. It was harder seeing it, but I knew it. She would be devastated. Of course. I would leave her, and I would be lying to myself if I didn't admit that she would spend the night I left in great pain, and probably the whole week, maybe the whole month. She would be in more pain than she had ever been. I would hurt her more than the monster who had tortured her—but again, I knew that. I had already hurt her unforgivably. And if one last act of violence, one more abuse against her was what it took to end it, then it was my job to make that choice. I was not twelve years old—I was not truly seventeen years old. I had been carving my miserable way through the planet for one-hundred-and-four years, and at some point I was going to have to take _some_ responsibility for my own actions.

And 'at some point' was going to be now.

I breathed deeply in and out, slowly lifted my head. I placed the images side by side with my snatches of explanation, sketches of ideas for forceful, doubtless, unarguable decision. I put the words I was drafting out for Carlisle with the images from Alice and fixed my eyes on them in my mind. And I kept my face neutral. And I breathed. I could do it. There. For today, that was all I would need to do. I would keep calm in the face of those things that were coming, and I would continue to work out the words for tonight. When they were right, I would practice them, and then before seven o'clock I would return home and give my instructions to Carlisle. Fine. Simple. I was doing well.

I glanced at the dashboard clock. Five past eight. There were other cars now, and Bella's truck was probably on the road. Right. Crunch time. I sat up, slowly, surveyed the car park. Easy. And I listened. Stretched my hearing out, and further…and there. There it was. My breath caught a little, and those images, the vision of Bella shaking in her bed, eyes wide and blank, flashed like spotlights in my eyes, but I blinked it, and I breathed through it, and I accepted it, and I moved through it. Get ready. This was not going to get any easier. I breathed. Bella would be here in minutes. That meant I needed to be out of the car. Right. I could do that.

I breathed in again, and picked up the keys, and my books, and opened the door, and stepped out. I felt dizzy, mentally, I assumed, since it was physically impossible. That was disconcerting, but probably not surprising, considering functioning was requiring the closing off of most of my thought capacity. I put a hand on the bonnet of the car, an anchor, safe, and consciously found casual in my stance. I carefully adjusted my feet, my hold on my books, to match any morning's. It was easier, when I focused on tasks. Planning more was going to be helpful, even though there was really very little to plan. I felt marginally more centred. I could do this. The engine roar and rattle was close now, maybe twenty seconds off sight. And I could do this. I felt…blank. That was good. Blank was acceptable.

And then Bella's truck turned the corner, and I could see her face through the windscreen, and everything fell apart. No. No.

No.

No.

No.

I tried to focus on breathing, tried to focus on plans, tried to focus on another word.

No.

My breath was too fast. Much too fast. Hyperventilation fast. Useless human panic instincts, because a vampire had no natural response to pain. I was getting nowhere.

The truck was too close. I couldn't do this. I couldn't do this. I couldn't do this.

Protect Bella.

Protect Bella.

Yes.

Yes.

I could.

I forced my breathing slow, thanked the dear Lord and whatever mercy he had left for me that no one was watching, because I looked like a madman. I stilled. By force. _Stop this. Stop. Now._ I composed my face. I was stupidly, breathlessly glad that I wasn't human, because I knew enough about human biology to know that a human breathing that fast and that desperately would be almost unconscious. I stopped breath altogether. I stilled. I visioned everything that made this decision right. I needed to do this. This was right. This was for Bella. For Bella. Protect Bella. Yes. Yes.

No! _Please…_

My mind was screaming, screaming in a desperate, mad way, but I kept my face blank, and there was a moment of truth here, I could feel it.

The scream passed.

It was blank again.

Okay.

The truck pulled into the parking lot, into its usual park. My face was blank. I could do this. I took one more slow, motionless breath, smiled neutrally, raised my eyes. And for a moment, for one beautiful moment, Bella's face looked lighter, like it deserved to be, like it always deserved to be.

And then the smile that was my world fell, and her eyes that were warmer than her blood widened, and the echoes of that emptiness were all there. And there was my truth. I was going to destroy her.

But it was all I could do.

It was right.

I could beg, and plead, and die a million times over.

I could desperately, pleadingly need to cry.

I could love her more than anyone had ever loved.

I knew all this.

But this was right.

Whatever pain it caused her for now, whatever pain it caused me forever, she would smile again, and she would live the life she was meant to live, shining and beautiful in the eyes of God.

It was all okay.

It was all okay.

I could do this.

I walked slowly the few metres to the truck as she gathered her books. I smiled warmly, reassuringly as I opened the door. She climbed out of the cab and pulled her books after her. I kept my voice soft. "How do you feel?"

Her lie was as obvious as usual. "Perfect."

But there was nothing I could do about the pain, the injury, the way she flinched at the noise as I shut the cab—extreme shock often left patients with a headache—so I filed it away with all the rest of the horror. Her eyes narrowed. She didn't believe my smile. But that was okay. Soon, it would not be a problem.

Tonight, I would tell my family.

Tomorrow, once they were gone, I would find the right way to tell my angel.

And the next day, Friday, after school so that she'd have the weekend to recover, I would tell her. I would be all planned, all set, so that I could give that day to myself. I would remember every look, every step, every light in her eyes. I would love her in peace for one more day. That wouldn't hurt. That would be fair. And then I would tell her calmly, easily, in the best possible way.

And then I would leave.

And then I would be gone.

And it would all be okay.

Everything would be okay.

ooo

We walked to class silently, and remained silent once we got there. The day passed roughly as it usually did, and I tried to spend as much time as possible rehearsing and editing my words for tonight, though it was difficult with Bella watching me. I made sure to ask about her arm occasionally, for appearance's sake. I knew she was in pain and that I could do nothing about it, but I didn't want to alarm her by remaining silent, even if that was all that was left for me now. So I kept asking. She lied every time. This didn't surprise me anymore. Of course she lied. She always lied. It was what I had done to her, made her lie for me, and it was just one more thing that would be fixed by Friday night. It made it easier, in a way. I could nod quietly to myself and know it would be over soon, and she would not have to lie anymore.

ooo

When lunch came, we sat at our usual seats, though naturally Alice was absent. She would probably be halfway through British Columbia by now, travelling in daylight was necessarily slower. She had taken my second car, most likely, and she probably thought she would spite me, but I didn't really mind. It would need to be taken at some time, and I didn't want to drive it on Friday night. I'd leave the Volvo for that. Or possibly I'd run. Running might be a better option, as I would probably be emotionally unstable.

"Where's Alice?" Anxious.

My heart ached, pulled, screamed for a moment—the fear in her voice was unbearable—but I pressed my fingers a little tighter into the dust of pre-packaged food I was disintegrating and filed it away with everything else—the pain she would feel when I left, the pain I would save her from in the long term, the lies she would never have to tell again, the injuries that would heal over and never be repeated now that I would not be here to endanger her.

I answered calmly. "She's with Jasper."

"Is he okay?" One more into the noted and accepted and moved past pile of everything I loved and hated and knew—the selfless concern in her voice, the endless forgiveness, the worry about Jasper where any other being on God's earth would be angry, resentful, afraid.

I kept my eyes on the now mostly powdered granola and kept the neutral, casual tone. "He's gone for a while."

More fear, more worry, and something new—horror? "What? Where?"

Somewhere north. Probably not Denali at first, I thought—he would be too angry to tolerate the girls' company. I shrugged. Calm. Quiet. Easy. "Nowhere in particular."

More horror. Despair. More and more to know and file away. "And Alice too." Barely a breath. Intense and beautiful and so ready to be freed of me.

I nodded calmly. Quietly. I even smiled, a little. "Yes. She'll be gone for a while. She was trying to convince him to go to Denali." And she'd find him easily once she was in Alaska. She would calm him without too much trouble. They'd probably be at the house by the time I arrived, maybe even before Carlisle and the rest got there tomorrow.

It was the scent of her tears that caught me, because I was doing an excellent job of not looking at much. She was slumped toward the table. She was in pain. And she would be in more. I knew more about humans than to think it was only her arm. But there was a plan, and a way of doing things. So I asked about her arm again.

She looked up only briefly. "Who cares about my stupid arm?" she muttered, bitter, fierce, and that fierceness and hate was in her eyes in such a familiar way. It was my emotion, and it didn't belong in those eyes, that were warm like sunshine and beautiful things untouched by evil. I swallowed it with everything else. It would be gone soon. I whispered that in my mind, a soft touch, the caress of hope, a breeze of warmth and goodness. She would be safe soon. She wouldn't have to hate again.

She rested her head on the table, probably exhausted and clearly struggling to deal with the pain. I let her have the last word—I didn't have much to say. There was nothing I could do about her arm right now, and I thought I should care more anyway, but the state in which I had put myself made it hard to care about anything. I cared about her, intensely, of course, but that was a given—an accepted, a moved past. A universal truth that no time or action could change. I smiled again to myself, inside. It didn't touch my lips—my face was carefully blank. I was an excellent actor. I was sticking to plan beautifully. Everything would be fine. Everything would be good again. She would be free. Everything was okay.

o

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o

A/N: I have to apologise for skimming a few hours of time in this chapter (and outright skipping in the 2nd half, which will be up next week when I've finished and edited it). There are two reasons I've chosen to do this. One; frankly, Edward's thoughts are **enormously** repetitive during this time and would only be painful, not interesting, to sit through. Secondly, Edward spends a lot of these three days either hyperventilating (when alone; because it distracts him, draws his focus, and exists as an instinctive reaction to extreme pain. Pain is a human thing, not something a vampire is meant to feel, and so he has only the human reaction) or what is probably completely out of his mind, in a state of survival shock that is pretty much madness. And that's not a problem for a vampire, but it is for me, lol. I had a few slightly close calls with blackout writing the panic parts of this chapter (not so good :S), and I need to be conscious to keep writing ;D So there had to be some cut off for my own health :P Extended in-character hyperventilation is bad for flimsy human writers ;D

(oh, and Music 1s my s0ul? Your much appreciated virtual starbursts finally convinced my to go buy some to write with, and the sugar rush kept me all sorts of useful things like alive through this chapter, so thanks for the idea! ;D Virtual cookies for you :-) )

Thank you everyone for reading, and sorry this was only half a chapter! Chapter 12.5 (the second half of Sept 14, incl. the conversation with Carlisle and the last photos) will be up next Thursday! Please review! I appreciate them so much :-) Love you all :D


	14. Chapter 13: Skitter

A/N: Hey guys! Didn't get quite as far as I thought I would this chapter, but when it got to 7000 words and Edward hadn't gotten home yet, I figured it was going to end up a 20000 word chapter if I tried to keep going, lol. So it kind of finishes oddly, but hope it fills your weekly dose of Edward :-) Am I really just delaying the inevitable by continually getting less far than expected? Probably :P I will get there, though. It's terrifyingly close now.

Oh, and a quick note – I know lots of you guys have me on author alert (and I know that some of you are younger readers), so thought I'd let you know – I write for a lot of fandoms (as in, things that aren't Twilight :P), and I haven't posted much of it on this account in the past, but I am going to be doing so a bit more. Please don't take me off alert (:D), 'cause I am going to try to post more of my Twilight one-shots and other chaptered fics as well – some of them have been waiting on my hard drive a long time :D But just be aware that some of my stuff for other fandoms is...very different to this :P So if you read any of my other stuff, read the warnings :-) Seriously :P Especially those of you who are younger readers :-) Hope that made sense :P Sorry for paranoia ;D

Love you all! Please review!

(oh, and I have never watched ESPN :P I don't know if we even have it in this country :P I am working entirely from Wikipedia :P So if any of my attempt to write Edward pretending to watch it makes no sense, please do tell me? :D)

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Chapter 13: Skitter

By the time final bell rang at 3:15, I had a lot of tonight worked out. The long stretches of mindless gabble that were classes made excellent planning time, and I had decided that the best plan was to keep it brief, give no opportunity for weakness to show. I would sincerely apologise—Esme and Carlisle had both been hoping to stay here a while longer, I knew. Then I would simply state that I needed the family to relocate. Perhaps we should impose upon our northern friends for a time, since Alice and Jasper would likely soon be there. I would wait for Carlisle to ask why, what had happened. If he asked then I could answer. If I didn't let him ask he'd only ask for more once I'd already explained myself. When he'd asked, most likely worried, possibly very worried, I would answer calmly. I would explain that I had been childishly playing around with human life long enough, and that it was time I took some responsibility and did the right thing. This wording I had reconsidered many times, but I was certain now that it was right. This Carlisle could not argue with, and it was him I needed to agree with me. Carlisle could not argue against my doing what was right. He would not. He understood more than anyone that what is right always matters more than any pain. He had taught me that.

I would wait patiently for them to argue themselves out—for Esme to, rather, since I was hoping Carlisle wouldn't. It would take much longer if Emmett was still here, which I feared he was, but even he would exhaust his protests eventually. I would maintain the same line through the discussion, from beginning to end. My only further position was a last resort, my plan if all else failed and they would not comply. I had rehearsed it enough that I could hear myself saying it, hear Emmett's arguments and Carlisle's quiet resignation. _Bella is my responsibility. I have made my decision. I have moved many times for your indiscretions, Emmett, and now I am sorry, but you will have to relocate for mine. I am giving Bella back her human life. No one will interfere_. And no one would argue with me. No one would dare, then. I hoped I would not have to use that particular plan, but I was ready. I was rehearsed. I would return home at the earliest possible opportunity and get this done, and by midday tomorrow I would be the only monster left in Forks.

Bella's voice broke through my thoughts as we crossed the car park. I hadn't planned on speaking until we reached her truck, but this was fine. Smaller scale parts of the planning, minute by minute ways of dealing with Bella were flexible. "You'll come over later tonight?"

Her words themselves did disrupt the plan a little. She usually wanted me with her constantly—to request that I attend to her later was unexpected. Perhaps she wished to sleep off her headache? It seemed unlikely. I lacked the motivation to figure it out myself. "Later?"

She smiled—a beautiful, genuine smile that I quickly filed under—'and this will be everything once I'm gone, this will be all she has, all the time'. I filed it there before it could hurt me, and I had gotten good at this over the course of the day. It fit easily now. Once I was gone, Bella would be able to smile always, after the initial pain, and so everything was alright. Her voice was smiling too, a little. "I have to work. I had to trade with Mrs. Newton to get yesterday off."

That made me frown—broke through my careful system. I murmured a quiet "Oh" to get response out of the way then put my energy into keeping the layers of defence and calm under control. She was injured; she shouldn't have to work. I knew she had a headache, and I didn't like the idea of her trying to do anything with that arm. Even if she only used her good arm and stood at the till of Newton's damned shop, her headache, her exhaustion would be a problem. I had planned on taking her home, putting her into bed, letting her exhaustion take her under and then returning home early to complete the first stage of my plan. This complicated things.

"So you'll come over when I'm home, though, right?" Her voice shook a little and I checked to make sure my smile was still in place. "If you want me to."

She frowned. Hard. I was considering whether to ask what I'd said or just to give up ever getting this right, since I hadn't in six months so I was hardly likely to in the next two days, when her voice pulled me sharply back to the present; "I always want you."

It was everything about it that disturbed me. The tone was what had caught my attention; fierce, almost violent, too intense for the conversation. But once I looked at her it was in her eyes too, burning, and the words…I focused back on my breathing, on hell flowing in and out of my lungs, and worked through that to focus my thoughts. She knew nothing. She understood nothing. She didn't know what she had said, like she never knew what she said, it was impossible. However strange her tone, she couldn't know what she'd said to me. I kept my lips a careful line, my voice perfectly blank. "All right, then." Easy. I would not alarm her. I would not suddenly fall into a panic in the middle of a perfectly harmless conversation in the car park. Nor, however, did I need this conversation to push on any longer. I reached around Bella to open her driver's side door. She didn't look at me as she climbed up to the seat, but she looked up, suddenly, as I was about to shut her in, and I couldn't look away—or didn't—in time to avoid her eyes, and then it was a struggle to look away at all. She looked…scared. And I didn't know what of, and I didn't know what to say, I never knew what to say to her, so I did the only thing I could and leaned back into the cab and pressed my lips to her forehead, just lightly, like I had so many times. I knew I shouldn't—I knew it would only make it harder in two days time—but it calmed her, usually, comforted her. I didn't want her to be upset, even if I didn't have the focus now to try to understand what was wrong.

I drew back. And she still looked afraid. Not even that—she looked _more_ terrified.

Well, I sure hadn't fixed it, whatever it was. Really, I couldn't fix anything for Bella, I never had, however hard I'd tried. I had made things worse and worse until they broke, and there was hardly any point making a last futile effort now when I was planning to hurt her terribly two days from now. So I looked away, and refused to look back, and shut the door of the cab, and let her go, like I should have done from the start.

I heard the key turn, after a moment, and walked slowly, ostensibly casually back to my car. One eye wouldn't leave the truck until it was out of sight. The sound of the pathetic thing it called an engine slowly faded as Bella headed out of town, to Newton's store. That was something else to think on, at least, aside from my dramatic failure to do anything remotely right. I slid into the car and shut the door before I let myself dwell on it. Another reality I was going to have to accept. Of course she would keep working at Newton's store once I had gone, would remain friends with him when all ties with me had been broken. In time, she would be close to him while I was all but forgotten. That Newton would one day be closer to Bella than I was inevitable, and necessary, and right. It made me want to dispose of the moron before I left, but I wouldn't. I was better than that.

The car park had emptied around me. I didn't turn the key. 'Later' had not been a part of my plans. I should have anticipated this, of course, would have, if I'd been properly focused, but I hadn't. My frustration hissed through my teeth as a growl. I was too reliant on the plan. Never mind who Bella might turn to once I had left, I was never going to get as far as leaving if I panicked and froze up every time a variable changed. I just...ok. I breathed, slowly, tried to centre myself. I needed to weigh my options. There were two, essentially. I could leave the plan largely as it was, drive toward Bella's home, park somewhere out of the way and spend a couple of hours sitting in the car, perhaps in the woods. That would be fine. Carlisle would assume I was at Bella's, so no one would come looking for me. After work, Bella would come home and I would visit, briefly, as promised. At an appropriate hour I would excuse myself and return home and speak to Carlisle. That was the option closest to my original intention. It would work fine. It was certainly tempting. The new possibility, though...I could return home now, and speak to Carlisle immediately. There were advantages to the idea. It would set a time limit on our discussion if it got out of hand, though I was hoping the decision would take well under the three hours until Bella would expect me. Even so, it could be useful, should the discussion drag on for some reason. The need to be at Bella's by the time she finished work would give me a definite end point for whatever argument might occur. On the other hand, there was the chance that Carlisle might simply insist we continue the discussion when I returned home, and that would give him several hours' space to think on it without my input, which was less than ideal.

I looked up sharply. There was someone knocking on my window. I was letting this distract me far too much, if I had not heard a human approaching. I rolled down the window as casually as I could and pasted on my best 'pathetic female teacher charming' smile. "Yes, Mrs Cope?"

For several seconds, Mrs Cope stared blankly, and I tried my level best to ignore her thoughts. The sick fantasies of every second woman were a trial I was used to now, but I still wondered vaguely how I had ever dealt with this when I was first turned. Perhaps people had been less...pathetic, when I was younger. After ten seconds of the woman opening and closing her mouth like a fish, I gave in. "Mrs Cope?"

The fish-mouthing momentarily sped up, until her vocal chords seemed to return to their usual function. "Edward! Uh, I, uh, I was, uh, at my desk, uh, in the office, and, uh..." she trailed off, and for a moment seemed speechless once more. _Perhaps this was a bad idea...he's probably just waiting for someone...it was stupid of me to come out here...he must think I'm a silly, senile old woman...how horrible...I'm not _that _old…let alone senile…_

"It's alright, Mrs Cope," I intervened, before the poor woman could give herself a complex. "I was just waiting to hear from someone before I headed off for the afternoon. I'll be gone shortly."

"Oh." Several more seconds of fish mouth. "I, uh, thought there might be something the matter."

Smile. Keep smiling. "Well, there's not."

"Oh." Her thoughts had wandered back to the shallower end of the spectrum. "Good." She didn't appear to be leaving.

For a moment I willed Alice to get me out of this; she had a particular talent for well placed phone calls. Then I remembered that Alice was half-way to Alaska and not thinking of me, and resigned myself to poor excuses. At lease Mrs Cope was pitifully easy to manipulate. I looked her direct in the eyes and her thoughts effectively ceased to be coherent. I kept smiling as she passively absorbed my cover. "Well, I might just go find the person who was meant to be calling me. Thanks for your concern, Mrs Cope."

"Oh. Right." She didn't move.

"Goodbye, Mrs Cope."

She nodded enthusiastically. And didn't move.

Well, I had _tried _to be polite. I waited a second longer before rolling up the window in her face and driving away as quickly as my car would take me.

When I looked back in my rear vision mirror, she was still staring blankly after me. _Oh dear, , you've gone and done it again, you must stop thinking these things...but he's such a nice boy..._

There would be definite advantages to hiding out in Alaska for a while.

I was heading toward Bella's home, not my own, and I let that make my decision. It was probably the better option, logically—there was appeal, now that I already knew every word I would speak, to getting the discussion over with, but it was more important to be able to monitor Carlisle's and Esme's thoughts from the time I told them to the time they left. They had no real grounds on which to object to leaving, but Esme hoped almost as strongly as Alice that Bella would be turned, and Carlisle was, in all honesty, probably more on Alice's side than mine. They had no right, of course, and would never act on the idea, but nor would they be likely to understand my choice. If Alice had told Esme what she'd seen, of how I would suffer, Esme would likely try to fight me, and if Alice's state of mind this morning had been anything to go by she had likely done as much as she could to turn the others against me in my absence. I would have to make my decision quite clear, make certain that going against me was simply not an option. It had always been the understanding, the agreement, that if any of us needed to relocate, it would be done. The situation was different here, because Alice wished us to stay for my sake, but Bella was my responsibility, however much Alice may interfere, and my own wellbeing was my concern alone, not hers.

I glanced out the window as a large-ish truck rolled past in the opposite direction. I had gone significantly father than intended—I was several minutes out of town. I wasn't worried. I had hours. I waited until the next exit—a small off-road to a 'remote tourist paradise in the lush forest of the Olympic Peninsula' to turn around. It always made Bella laugh that tourists would pay what, for them, were such immense sums of money to sit in cabins in the rainy forest around Forks. She had grown less hostile to the rain, but she still thought the tourists were mad. _I_ quite liked the weather here, and parts of the landscape were beautiful. I could understand the attraction, though Forks itself was hardly a highlight of American civilisation. I could do with returning to university—the thoughtstream there was immensely more bearable than anywhere else among humans. It was the only place in the human thoughtstream that I encountered new knowledge with any frequency. Perhaps in some years I would return to college. Study something. What exactly didn't matter much. It felt less appealing than it could have. Nothing honestly felt that appealing. But I had to try.

By the time I passed the first houses of Forks again a minute later, I had a fairly extensive list of possible college majors. Where I studied would have to be carefully selected—if I did this in a couple of years, then Bella would be at college too and I couldn't risk meeting her. I was going to have to keep close track of Bella. This was a part of 'after' that I was going to have to plan, at some point. I was fast approaching Bella's turn now, and I pulled into the next street. I didn't want Charlie to see me sitting on the side of a road. The street was quiet, three houses along its length before it dissolved back into trees. I pulled in at the dead end and hoped no one would call the police on a 'suspicious car' sitting in their street for a few hours. Only in Forks.

Now was as good a time as any to start making those after plans. If Alice's visions were anything to go by, which they always were, I would be in little state to make plans afterward, and the last few minutes had convinced me that this would be important. So, I would need to keep track of Bella. We would have to relocate every few years as usual, and Bella was highly unlikely to stay in Forks the rest of her life. She would be at college in a year, and would likely move somewhere more urban after that. If we didn't keep track of her, there was every chance we could encounter her by chance...especially if Alice remained against me. As long as Alice remained convinced that Bella would take our curse, she would encourage us toward any vision of meeting rather than moving us on. So I would need to do this without her or Jasper. As intimidating as the idea was, it was infinitely superior to the possibility of running into Bella on the street in several years time and having to hide and watch her pass. I groaned as I sank further into my seat; if anyone did want to glare out their window at the car, I'd rather they didn't see me.

Doing my best to swallow all apprehension, I set my mind to practicalities. Information tracking was Jasper's area, but there was no way I could give this to him if there was a chance of Alice working against me. I would either have to either do it myself, or…entrust it to Carlisle? I wouldn't normally consider it, but this was an exceptional situation. Emmett and Rosalie lived away from us too often for me to rely on then. Esme would probably ruin everything if Alice asked her to. Carlisle then. Or me...but no. No, I wasn't an option. I was confident that I could do this. I was confident that I could leave. But living afterward...well, I had already decided that I would handle it when it began. How well I would handle it was irrelevant, as long as I did. Nothing in it really needed planning beyond the basic; I would live as long as Bella did, to ensure that Alice didn't decide to destroy everything and convince Carlisle to change her once I was unable to protect her. As long as I was alive she would never dare, and Carlisle would never betray me. So I would remain alive for as long as Bella. And once I had news of her death, I would be free to pass on, if it was possible for us. Beyond that, little planning was needed...except for this.

So. I would ask Carlisle. I would ask him just to keep tabs on her, hopefully via the internet, to remain aware of where she lived. That would allow him to make sure we never lived in the same place as her, and, when the time came, in eighty years or thereabout, to inform me when she...when her life was over. When she returned to Heaven. The thought hurt. A lot. I clenched my jaw and ignored it. Details...yes, details were needed. It would be impossible for Carlisle to unobtrusively be aware of every visit Bella made, every trip, so it was possible that though she lived far from us, she could visit a city where we were resident. So I would ask Alice. I couldn't rely on her, but if there was no other way to monitor Bella's finer movements, it would be better than nothing. I would plead with her, threaten her, make quite clear that if I ever accidentally encountered Bella then Alice would regret it. Alice was...less threatened by me than any sane creature, but it was the best I could do. Arguing with Alice was an area where I was well and truly experienced. I could handle that part once I was in Denali. Only what I would ask of Carlisle needed to happen now. I should think that out for tonight. Decide how I would ask. Well, it was a way to pass the hours...

Two and a half hours later, the alarm on my cell phone buzzed in my pocket—it had been a long time since anything had distracted me enough that I might lose track of time, but I was too distracted to keep track of anything right now, and I wasn't taking any risks—and I turned the key in the ignition. Either the occupants of the houses were all late at work or they were all extremely reclusive, because I'd seen none of them. That wasn't all that unusual, though. If the street was populated by the elderly, they were probably all just sitting in their inner rooms staring at the walls or the television. Forks was hardly a lively intellectual or social centre of civilisation.

Less than a minute later I was pulling up to Charlie's driveway. The truck was not there, but the police cruiser was. I resisted the urge to groan. Brilliant. I wondered whether I could go back to my dead end for another ten minutes and escape the awkwardness, but inside Charlie was already wondering whether the car pulling in had been me—it was too quiet to be the truck—and wondering really meant knowing, 'cause no one else visited here except for the occasional hostile invasion by the Quileute idiots.

I tried to clear my mind as I climbed out of the car. Charlie didn't require much conversation, but I knew that my face had furrowed itself into almost a scowl over the past few hours, and I did need to be polite. I took a moment to gauge his thoughts. Bella's father was in the lounge, eating something in which I had no interest, watching SportsCenter with only moderate concentration. The door was unlocked and I opened it myself. I knocked lightly on the doorframe—he'd already heard the door open.

"Edward?" _That's a thought, where is Bella today? Wednesday, she shouldn't have work...perhaps she switched yesterday. Think she was home for her birthday. That'll be it. Must be home soon..._

I went through to the tiny lounge. My smile felt somewhat strained, but there wasn't a big chance of him bothering to look at me. "Afternoon, Charlie. Bella not home from Newtons' yet?"

Charlie watched two nameless commentators debate something mindless for another ten seconds before he tore his thoughts away. "Afternoon, Edward. Bella at work today?"

He'd already forgotten what I'd said. At least that meant I wasn't going to have to talk much.

I nodded and muttered a vague assent as I rounded the couch and invited myself to the armchair. He didn't particularly like having me around any more than I enjoyed watching sports drivel with him, but he remained as horrified by the mere thought of me in Bella's room as he had from day one, and it would be conspicuously impolite for me to sit in the kitchen alone while he sat here a room away.

"Basketball later."

I nodded again. "Should be good."

"Think the Sonics have a chance?"

No. "Of course. I hear the Spurs have been out of form in training this week."

"Really?" It wasn't a question.

He didn't speak again, and I didn't miss the conversation.

It was usually a relief, on nights like these, to hear the distant roar of Bella's truck approaching shortly after nightfall. Today the sound came with a thick, choking feeling of dread, and I didn't welcome the change. I kept my breathing stable as the truck grew closer, and reminded myself that I'd been by Bella's side with no problem all day. This was no different. Neutral and calm. Don't alarm her. Don't give anything away. Very simple. Charlie didn't hear the truck until it was almost in the drive.

"That'll be Bella."

I nodded. "Mmm."

"Did your party go well yesterday?"

The question really shouldn't have caught me off guard, but it did. I choked back venom and disgust and pain and everything else for a moment, then looked firmly away from Charlie while I answered. "Great. I think Bella enjoyed herself. Everyone had a great time."

He nodded absently, still mostly watching ESPN. "Thank your parents for me, will you? I should have them round here some time."

"I'll tell them." Not in a million years. "They'd like that."

Bella was climbing out of the truck now. Usually I'd get up and meet her outside, but it would be easier to stay neutral if I just stayed here and did nothing. Watching the television didn't require conversation. We could sit here and do that, she could sit by Charlie on the couch, and by the time the show finished it would be a reasonable time for me to leave. I wouldn't have to talk. And sitting in silence I could manage calmly, surely.

Her footsteps were loud on the dirt, up the stairs. The door creaked slightly, familiarly as it opened.

"Dad? Edward?"

Her voice was still touched with this afternoon's panic. It put me on edge. I breathed slowly and focused on calm.

"In here," Charlie called.

Bella moved faster than usual around the corner. I couldn't look. I knew I should—I knew I was going to seem…odd, but everything just seemed…I just couldn't. Breathe. I just needed to breathe. But breathing was her, breathing was all her, and it didn't help. Focus. Don't panic.

"Hi," Bella murmured from the door. Charlie, thankfully, replied before I could be expected to. I slowly, painstakingly reigned in my…fear?

"We just had cold pizza," Charlie added after a moment in which I brought myself back under control and Bella didn't move. "I think it's still on the table."

I wondered whether he actually thought I had eaten pizza with him. Perhaps he really hadn't noticed that I never ate. Perhaps he thought I'd taken food from the table on the way through to the television.

"Okay," Bella mumbled, voice thick, and I prayed that she would go for the pizza so I could have a minute to bring myself properly back to neutral. She didn't move. Charlie didn't seem to be saying anything more, and neither did she. She was waiting for me. Damn it. I fixed the best smile I could, took a moment to focus, and turned only my head to face her. "I'll be right behind you." Fine. I broadened the smile as best I could before I turned away and let it drop. I hated this. I hated lying to her when I hadn't for so long. I hated that she seemed upset. I hated not being in control of myself. I hated that I was going to make her miserable this weekend. I hated that I was going to, God, I was leaving her. I hated that I was going to be without her. Forever. Never, ever with her again…

I stared mindlessly at the television and _didn't_ listen to her moving into the kitchen. There was no way I would be right behind her. I was going to sit here, and not panic, and calmly, neutrally, sanely watch the rest of SportsCenter before politely excusing myself and going home. I was fine. Just fine. I just needed to breathe. And not panic. Or stop panicking. Because I knew all this. I had accepted all this. All of it. And I was fine…

Ten minutes later, I really was fine, mostly. Staying calm seemed to be getting harder rather than easier, and that bothered me, but at least I hadn't given anything away. Bella had retreated to her room, perhaps for painkillers, though I'd given up trying to guess reasons for anything, since it was pointless and I was never right. There, she took a photograph, then came back out. I remained calm as she descended the stairs. She stopped outside the doorway into the lounge and I took the moment to ensure that I was truly calm, ready this time. I had handled Bella's appearance ten minutes ago disappointingly poorly. My plans for Friday evening would upset her immensely, and in order to go through with them I would have to learn to deal with that. I had let Bella's fear break my calm once. It would not happen again.

When she leaned around the doorframe and took a photo of the room, her father watching the television, me pretending to, I didn't really have it in me to be surprised. There was nothing particularly surprising about it. It was as inexplicable as everything else Bella did. As inexplicable as it would all remain, forever, a natural anomaly, a true thing of beauty, perfect precisely in its incomprehensibility, like God. Beyond us. Beyond me. That was only the norm, really.

"What are you doing, Bella?" Charlie objected as I focused on looking unperturbed, and it was comforting in an odd way to know that I wasn't the only one mystified, though it was less comforting to think that I was feeling lucky to compare to Bella's middle-aged, small town father. At least he was a fairly good father. There were worse people to compare to.

I couldn't believe I was thinking this.

Bella was gabbling out one of her less convincing lies, and I tried to think of a less absurd train of thought to distract me but there weren't any. I glanced back at SportsCenter. It remained less than riveting.

I had just found a suitable topic of thought—whether leaving the country, trying college in Britain might be a feasible option—when it broke.

"Hey, Edward."

She sounded…ill. And I couldn't pretend to be somewhere else if Bella was speaking to me.

"Take one of me and my dad together."

She threw the camera at me before I could think of an excuse. I caught the thing easily, instinctively, then stared at it in my hand for a long moment. I breathed once in, and out. And stared. I was frozen. Damn it. _Just look at her_, my somewhat buried voice of reason pushed, and I tried to focus on the calm parts of me, the ones that weren't terrified by the prospect of actually looking at Bella and seeing her and whatever might be in her eyes. If I didn't pull myself together soon, even Charlie was going to notice I wasn't moving. I shifted the camera to my other hand and pretended to examine the buttons. Bella wouldn't buy that I couldn't work the thing, if she was looking, but I could think of an excuse later. I heard the effort to fake a photographic smile run through Charlie's thoughts and gritted my jaw. Now. With a force of will that really shouldn't have been necessary, I lifted the camera first and looked straight through the viewing lens.

This should not be hard. There was no reason for this to be hard.

But it was.

Bella looked terrified. Every muscle in her body was tense, and probably had been for some time. Her eyes looked like they had the day I'd put her in a car with Alice and Jasper—particularly stupid move on my part, though that was nothing unusual—and sent her away to Phoenix. She wasn't smiling, though her father behind her was making an awkward and slightly ridiculous-looking attempt to grin. One hand clenched her knee. And yet, despite all that, through all that, she was still the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. The most beautiful thing I would ever imagine. I shut my eyes. _Not. Mine._ I reminded myself, though it went against every instinct I had, every foul animal instinct to claim and protect and possess. Those weren't _human_ reactions to love, I knew that, of course they weren't. They had no place near Bella. When I opened my eyes she was still the most beautiful girl in the world, and she still wasn't mine, and she still wasn't smiling. I swallowed the venom that was always present near Bella, especially in this house where her scent was everywhere, and forced my voice not to give away the sick feeling that I shouldn't have been able to feel in my gut. "You need to smile, Bella."

She forced her lips into something about as convincing as her father's. It felt oddly ironic that my smile was probably the most convincing in the room, when I was the one feeling a lot like being torn apart.

The barest pressure on the button and the flash made Bella's pupils rapidly shrink and then expand again.

Charlie spoke up before I'd managed to tear my eyes away from Bella. "Let me take some of you kids." _Renee doesn't want photos of me, after all. Hn, the kid'll make good looking photos, at least. Probably be on television one day, all those big LA parties and drugs and the lot, not the..._

I blocked out the mental rambling—Charlie finding ways to worry about my influence on his daughter was nothing new—as best I could and reflected on how amusingly futile it would be for me to ingest drugs.

I tossed the camera Charlie's way as I stood from the armchair, directing it as closely into his hands as possible—he was a better catch than Bella, but not by much.

Bella was beside me before I realised I was—of course—expected to stand with her. I focused on staying calm as I rested one hand on her shoulder, lightly as I could. I had sworn I would not hold her again, and I would not. Touching her knowing that was hell.

I gave up on the calm when she stepped deliberately closer and wrapped one arm around my waist, tightly for her, pressing her whole side against me, burning, burning on my skin until I could feel her pulse in every inch of my body. It was...unimaginably painful, and I wanted it to last for every single second of the rest of forever.

I fixed a smile—still, miraculously, relatively convincing, sort of, though I wasn't trying all that hard—on my face and looked at the camera, not at Bella.

Charlie frowned. "Smile, Bella."

Bella inhaled deeply next to me and it moved her whole body and I wondered whether I was mad to think that I could actually do this.

The flash sent shadows skittering around the room.

Charlie huffed annoyance—_Renee's going to blame me for filling the roll with our lounge room, should have told Bella to...—_as he lowered the camera. "Enough pictures for tonight. You don't have to use the whole roll now." He twisted round to bury the camera somewhere in the cushions of the couch, stretched out, and sat on it. I wondered vaguely how good that was for the camera.

Charlie's eyes were back on the television. It astonished me how long millions of people could spend watching gimmick after meaningless gimmick and an endless list of commentators gabbling off empty speculations and useless information. And I was a sports fan.

And Bella was still pressed into my side.

I knew I was deliberately delaying moving by pushing my thoughts elsewhere, and that was unacceptable, even if it hadn't been unforgivably cowardly. I tried to focus on my breathing—it was my best means of finding calm, staying resolute—then realised that probably wouldn't help me move _away_ from Bella, all things considered. That thought was enough to move me. I pulled my hand back just slowly enough not to shock Charlie if he happened to glance back and twisted out of Bella's arm, careful not to hurt her. It would be so easy. With her gripping my side like that, I would only need to step sideways and it would probably sprain her wrist.

I sat back down quickly before she could see my face. I had a strong suspicion that I probably looked slightly crazed. It wasn't until I was already seated that I realised I could have taken the chance to leave. But of course I'd realised. Part of me must have—my mind did not miss things. Then I didn't want to leave. Of course I didn't. Brilliant. This was going well. I almost growled it at myself, and had to focus quickly again on my face before I gave away my fury.

I fixed my eyes back on the television set, refused to look at Bella sitting back on the floor, and reflected on whether I could be any more pathetic.

When the screen shifted back to commercials and I glanced sideways—just in case she'd fallen asleep, she was very quiet, and I could leave if she'd fallen asleep—she was shaking. I stared back at the screen and reminded myself that vampires couldn't be sick.

Half an hour later, SportsCenter finally wound up, and I stood up too quickly. I'd failed to leave once, and I fought down the irrational terror that I wouldn't be able to do it. I was _not_ spending the night here. I had to speak to Carlisle. And I did have to, there wasn't an option. I could _not_ just stay here, like I always stayed here, and forget about talking to Carlisle, forget it had ever happened. That wasn't an option. That couldn't be an option. I would not let it. I wouldn't.

Calm. Focus on calm.

"I'd better get home," I murmured, keeping my eyes on Charlie and not his daughter.

He was avidly watching a commercial for shower cleaning product, thinking mostly about fishing. "See ya."

Bella didn't speak, and I didn't wait for her to stand. It was rude—it was incredibly rude—but I couldn't shake the fear settling on my skin like so much dust. I needed to get home and speak to Carlisle. Once I'd spoken to Carlisle, I wouldn't be able to turn back. Once I'd spoken to Carlisle, it would be done. I just had to get through tonight.

Bella stumbled after me faster than usual. I heard her footsteps on the porch instead of where they should have been in the hall as I reached the drive.

"Will you stay?" And I thought I finally understood what was making me feel so ill, so weak, so almost like leaving all the careful planning behind and throwing everything away. She sounded broken. Just broken. Because of me.

I needed to get out of here. I needed to get out of her life. God, I didn't want to. I felt...so fragile. It almost made me laugh. So human. If only I were. If only Bella had been by my side in 1918...never mind that she would have died of the influenza. What a stupid thought. The almost laughter in my head at that was enough to bring me back to the present. "Not tonight," I answered, calmly, and my resolution was back. This was unforgiveable. What I had done to her was unforgiveable. Ending it should be the easiest thing in the world. I took one deep breath in of the cool air and the forest and mainly just Bella, though she was five metres away behind me.

And I opened the car door and climbed in and drove away without a backward glance. I could do this. She was still standing in the rain, dripping—and it was easier now not to think about the scent of the rain in her hair, on her skin, easier to push it back with everything else—when I glanced in the rear vision as I turned the corner. This was over. This was ending, now. I was one-hundred-and-five years old, and I had one-hundred-and-five years of self-control. Bella was breaking for me. It was time for me to grow up.

I ran the lines I'd practiced through my mind again as the road burned under my wheels. Miles away in the night, something howled.

ooo

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Thank you so much for reading, all. Looking forward to hearing from you; you guys know how much I love my reviewers! :D


	15. Chapter 14: Ash Like Snow

A/N: Hey guys! So, after one hell of a writing effort, here is the next chapter. I've had all kinds of writers block with it, probably at least partly 'cause it's just a really horrible head space to go into, and it only gets worse, exponentially so, the further I push through these lead up days. Poor Edward :-( Uni's really stepping up for end of year, which means I have time issues, but I have madly set at it tonight and somehow, there is a complete chapter :-) I hope you all like it!

Reviews are, as always, much appreciated :-) Thank you so much for your patience with me :D

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Chapter 14: Ash Like Snow

I could hear Carlisle standing in the window by the time I was three miles off. He hadn't heard me coming yet—he must have been there for some time. Emmett and Rose were still here, though that wasn't surprising. I'd planned for it. Emmett, thankfully, hadn't heard me yet either, focused on Rosalie...who was fuming, naturally. She would be venomous and unreasonable, but she would support me. She stood on my side when it came to Alice's ridiculous plans, and she wanted Bella out of our lives, if not entirely for my reasons. The others less so. Esme was flitting, which meant she would be trouble. Esme didn't lose her calm often now, but her mind was chaos from here. Behind Carlisle at the window, pressing her head into his shoulder and trying to calm herself, crossing the room again to hover unhelpfully over Rosalie, Rosalie snapping and Esme too taken up with worrying about me to really respond, crossing the room back to Carlisle as he cautioned Rosalie non-commitally without looking away from the window or really taking his mind off me.

Well, that made me feel better.

I wondered whether it was wrong to think in sarcasm at a time like this.

They heard the car before I was at the turn, but no one decided it was me until I pulled the Volvo off the road and up the hill. They were at a disadvantage without Alice and I, and they were unused to it. The two of us generally didn't leave at the same time—we had been at peace most of our time as a family, but we were cautious. Always cautious. Until Bella.

I held back a groan as Emmett stepped away from Rosalie and headed out the door. Resisting the urge to slow down the car was harder—I could think of a long list of things I'd rather do than be ambushed by Emmett yelling about nothing, since he didn't actually have the faintest idea what was going on. Then again, that wasn't really anything new either. Emmett wasn't known for his planning or slow consideration.

"Emmett..."

I was close enough to hear Carlisle's voice now, just, though he was staying quiet.

"He's doing something stupid, Carlisle. You won't stop him, I will."

Rosalie was glaring at the doorway from the couch. "'Cause he'll really listen to you."

"He doesn't get a choice this time."

"And that's always worked on _Edward_."

Carlisle didn't move from the window. "Both of you. We don't know the situation yet."

I ignored the specifics of their thoughts, the flicker of images that never slowed playing itself out in the back of my mind like security footage, angles shifting as they overpowered each other in the thoughtstream. Thoughts wouldn't help me for now. I was almost at the top of the drive, and I was going to get out of the car, ignore Emmett, get into the house, make Esme sit down before she wore tracks into the floor and say exactly what I'd planned to say in exactly those words, exactly as I'd run it over in my head a thousand times today. I ran it over again anyway, quickly. It was easier than listening to Emmett planning to ram my head into a tree.

At least there were no surprises when I pulled into the clearing. I kept my face carefully neutral. It was important to keep this basic. If Esme saw my panic, she'd become impossible to reason with. If Carlisle did there was the danger he'd overrule me. It would make no difference to Emmett, but I didn't need Emmett. I would stay calm. I would stay blank. I didn't pause before opening the car door.

"Emmett, if you try to slam me into a tree I will tell Rosalie what you said about her plans for Marrakesh last Sunday."

It took him long enough to realise that Rosalie was going to ask him about it now anyway for me to get onto the porch. Carlisle opened the door. "Welcome home, Edward."

My smile was probably not all that convincing, but that was acceptable. Just. "Carlisle." Esme was clinging to the corner of the couch, standing behind Rosalie's shoulder. I nodded briefly in her direction. "Esme."

Rosalie smirked. "Edward."

I gritted my teeth. "Rosalie."

For one long, stretched moment, the air crackled.

This did not bode well.

I cleared my throat and reminded myself that I was in charge tonight. "Shall we sit?"

Emmett scowled at me until he was the only one still standing. I moved silently to the armchair. There was a brief moment of indecision—whether I'd be better off sitting with Carlisle and Esme so that Emmett would have more trouble yelling at me, or sitting on one side of Rosalie so that he'd have to lean over her agreeing with me to argue, but I had already made this decision, I'd already planned all of this, so I already knew that taking the armchair would be the best way to seem in control, certain, unmovable, and that Emmett didn't matter so much compared to the others because once the rest agreed, Emmett wouldn't go against Rosalie by saying anything to Bella.

There was an odd sense of calm about sitting down, an ease to just being still, a grounding to just watching, waiting, half-listening as Carlisle firmly took Esme's arm and brought her to the couch. Emmett compromised by standing behind Rosalie, leaning forward on the back cushions in a pose that I knew without his thoughts was supposed to look intimidating. His thoughts added that he knew I wasn't that easily intimidated but did it anyway, instinctively, in his anger, but I knew that too, really. I'd lived with Emmett a long time.

I had one more moment of indecision—maybe I should wait for Carlisle to start. Carlisle always started these discussions, it was the way we'd always done things, and…but no, I knew this, I'd thought about this, I'd devoted an entire day to thinking about this, and I was starting the conversation. I was starting the conversation right this second, before I could back out, before…I breathed out, once. "I have an apology to make to all of you."

The instant response that only I heard, that I was so used to tracking—Rosalie—_here we go…_—Emmett's impatience, apprehension, fear?, flickers of what could be, _but no, he said…hey, could it be?... _—the immediate flutter of eight different equally painful possibilities in Esme's mind, and the equally immediate awareness that none of them mattered, that we were what mattered, I was what mattered, the frightened self-reassurance that she would make everything okay—God, I hated myself sometimes—and Carlisle, calm, waiting, but with a quiet, measured undertone of fear that said he knew me too well to take this for nothing.

Emmett shifted behind the couch. "We got that."

And so…my mouth opened and said nothing.

Rosalie. _He's so transparent. He's like a child. Esme's right—he was definitely _deficient _when he was turned._

Emmett. _Why doesn't he ever use common sense? He's smart enough, he just...damnit, Edward..._

Esme. _I shouldn't say __anything; he's going to tell us, I should wait for him to speak, oh, what if something's happened to Bella? But surely Alice would have known, no, no, I'm sure she's fine, it's fine, perhaps he's just distressed about Alice and Jasper? It's probably just as I thought; he's probably had a fight with Jasper. We can sort that out. It…_

And one that wasn't rapid-fire, wasn't skittish or distracted or jumping or changing, one that was measured, and forcibly calm, thoughts slowed like few had the mental control to do.

_Talk to me, Edward. Calm down. Talk to me._

He thought I needed to calm down? I couldn't afford to look less than calm. But…and I switched the words around.

"I know that some of you will have difficulty with this."

What? I couldn't just change the plan like that. I was meant to tell them, then say that. I had to tell them. Now. Before it looked like I was avoiding it…was I avoiding it? Was that what was happening?

"Can we get this over with?" Rosalie, groaning in her head. She could see it too. They could all see it. They could all see that I wasn't calm, and that was the core of the plan. And I'd said the wrong thing. Because I couldn't say it. Because I was too weak to just say it. Because I was too pathetic, and I hated this, and I didn't want it, I didn't want it, I didn't want this discussion or tomorrow or the next day or the next, I didn't want to go back to hurting Bella but I didn't want to say this either, and I wished, I so wished, I so fervently wished it could just end, that I could do neither, that I could disappear instead.

Emmett was rapidly losing patience--he hated not knowing. "You have ten seconds to start saying something before we go back to the tree idea."

I didn't want to do this.

I couldn't do this.

"Let Edward talk, Emmett." _It's alright, Edward. Speak, my son._ And all the things that didn't have words. All the faith that transcended words and pictures. All the overlap between Jasper's gift and mine. The form of thought that was harder to breathe, the level of thoughts that I didn't often read from others, but from Carlisle—from Carlisle who had been my life, my centre, my anchor, my right for so long…and he still had faith in me, even now. _You can say it, Edward. We'll understand._ And he would. He would understand it all. And I didn't want him to understand, I wanted him to just let it go and do as I said, but I had to say it anyway.

Because he believed I was better than this. Because he believed I was the man I wished I could be. And even if I wasn't, even if it would never be true, for him, I could pretend. I was very good at pretending. I could pretend to be strong, for Carlisle. I could pretend to be, for Bella.

Esme's voice was almost tight, too high-pitched. "Ed—"

"We are leaving here."

For one second, for one whole second, the thoughts of the room were blissfully silent.

And then Rosalie was laughing, and Emmett was shouting at me, lines I'd thought he would, predicted, and Esme's thoughts were as loud as Emmett's voice and it was so much noise, so much noise, but all I could see was Carlisle, face grave as it had been the months I'd writhed on the floors of another house with red eyes, and his eyes more sad than anything, with sparks of anger and betrayal and pain and regret and relief and conflict that I knew better than to try to place, and thoughts still almost all focused, if I let the quietened undercurrent go. _There are other options, Edward._

But that I knew. This argument I had rehearsed. This brought me back to stable ground. I sounded much calmer, I thought, when I spoke again, to Carlisle alone, because how could I forget that no one else really mattered?

_You don't have to do this, Edward._

And at last I knew something for sure. "Yes, I do."

If nothing else, my saying something brought Emmett down from yelling to a tolerable speaking voice. "You're an idiot, Edward."

"Emm—"

"No, this is bullshit." Carlisle sighed quietly in his head as Emmett cut him off, and I focused on listening to three sets of thoughts at once—Rosalie was already on my side, her thoughts, venomous as they were, had confirmed it within instants.

I didn't bother actually trying to address Emmett's protests. "I know that we were hoping to stay here a while longer, and I am very sorry to ask this so suddenly—"

"Suddenly isn't the problem, Edward! You can't—"

Speaking over Emmett was an art form, requiring careful control of tone and pitch. "I thought perhaps we could impose upon Tanya for a while. Alice was heading for Alaska this morning, with the intention of bringing Jasper to Denali as soon as possible."

Emmett's voice had dropped again. "How can you just—you're not seriously planning to just walk out of here and leave Bella behind? 'Cause of a stupid slipup that didn't even happen?"

The urge to tear at him, to make him take it back, the idea that Bella being attacked, being half a second from death was a 'stupid slipup', a triviality—but I had planned this. I had planned for just this. I could not let him provoke me. I would wait until _Carlisle _asked, because once I had provided his questions with reasoned answers, it would be harder for him to object.

Emmett obviously didn't see my reasoning. "You can't even answer me, Edward! There's no way you can just leave Bella. This is even more stupid than usual!"

Carlisle cut in before Emmett could go back to yelling. "Where is this coming from, Edward? You know none of us would ever allow Bella to be harmed."

"Jasper will be much more careful from now on," Esme added in a whisper, hysteria poorly contained.

"Yes," Carlisle resumed, squeezing Esme's hand as she went back to staring miserably, tearlessly at me, and I avoided her eyes. "We will all be much more careful with Jasper, when he chooses to come back."

And he waited. There it was. My turn. The question was asked, and I had written this answer down to the syllable and rehearsed it down to the breath. I had only to open my mouth and confirm it all, confirm the unimaginable. The only way. I didn't shut my eyes, or pause for breath. This was too important to risk with hesitation. This was protecting Bella. This was the most important thing in the world. "This isn't about Jasper," I relayed calmly, coolly. "It is simply that the time has come. Any human is in danger when in close contact with vampires, even with us, and Bella more so than most. Given that I have no plans to change her, it is unrealistic to think that I can stay here forever. I have been childishly playing around with human life long enough, Carlisle. I think it's time that I take some responsibility and do the right thing."

Strangely, the one who got in first was the only one I hadn't planned on—and she spoke only because she knew it wouldn't change my mind. Her voice was cold, and I knew it was her anger and her pain and her annoyance at Emmett standing up for Bella that spoke, in voice and in thought, but that didn't make her any less frustrating than it usually did. "The right thing by who, Edward?" _You've never done the right thing by anyone but yourself, and you know it._

But even though she was the only one I hadn't planned on speaking, it was the easiest question of all to answer.

I smiled icily at Rosalie before turning back to Carlisle and Esme on the opposite couch. "For Bella, of course. I have been doing the right thing by myself for eight months. I have a responsibility as a much, much older, more responsible adult than Bella to make the right decision for her. She has a promising, full life ahead of her, and it would be deeply wrong for me or anyone else to interfere with that. That should be enough answer for all of you."

Carlisle's indecision was almost as painful in my head as trying to remain this cold. I felt surreally close to breaking. At least Rosalie had decided to be quiet—she was worried that I really might crack. Perhaps I hadn't sounded as calm as I'd thought.

Despite that, though, it seemed to be going well, if ignored the scream in my mind each time I smiled and spoke another word of cool, emotionless answer. The preferred end of my predicted spectrum. Esme was too distraught to think clearly, and I felt despicable for thinking of that as a good thing, but this mattered more. Getting my family away from here, away from Bella, away from where she could be hurt mattered more than anything else. I almost raised an eyebrow in surprise as Rosalie's voice rose up again, in a barely audible mutter—she had come out more strongly on my side than even I'd expected. Emmett's face was twisted in something between fury and shock and anguish—Rosalie was trapping him. "Edward won't change his mind, you must be able to see that, Emmett. You're just wasting time by arguing. Will you please come help me start packing?"

"Rose, please. Edward—"

Emmett was on his own--she was speaking too quietly for Carlisle to hear clearly across the room. I knew the look that Emmett was seeing in Rosalie's eyes, and I knew she would beat him for me. "We are leaving, Emmett. That is final. If you try to make him stay here, when you know that I have always thought we should leave, I will not forgive you."

It wasn't true, and Emmett had to know that, in his heart, but Rosalie was difficult to argue with. "He's in love, Rose!"

"And when you love someone, you're supposed to do what you have to in order to make her happy."

"Rose, I…I love you so much, you know I do, but this will make everyone unhappy."

My cue. "That's not true, Emmett."

They both looked marginally surprised that I'd been listening, though Rosalie's expression was an act.

"This will be better for Bella in the long run. She will be upset at first, but it's human nature to recover. It is my deepest hope that she will find someone more suitable to live her life with."

"You do _not_ mean that."

And truthfully, honestly, the idea made me as furious, more furious, than it did Emmett, but I had the grace to know that my anger was wrong. Bella had a right to happiness. Bella had always had that right, and I did not have the right to take it away for the sake of my own jealousy and desire.

"I do."

"You can't!"

I took a deep breath. I had to say it. "She is not my mate, Emmett."

"What?"

I shrugged, and it felt a lot like being burned alive. "She's a human girl. I love Bella very much, but she can never be my mate, and I cannot give her a life. It would be foolish and only cause us both pain to pretend."

There was a very loaded silence after that, and it became very clear that no one believed me.

But once again, it was Rosalie who spoke, and once again, she worked better than my plan ever could have. "I agree with Edward. We shouldn't be here. We're interfering with humans. It's unforgivable."

No one spoke the things that Rosalie was calling into this conversation, but we all knew them, and I could have forgiven her for anything she'd ever done to me right in that moment. Rosalie had never wanted this, and so we would not bring it on another innocent with no way to know what was our curse. Emmett could not, for all his misplaced, stupid guilt about Rosalie's misery, for how much he hated that he couldn't heal it, for how much it hurt him that she'd rather be dead. Carlisle could not, for all that Rosalie was his burden, his decision, his venom. Esme could not because every burden of Carlisle's she took willingly, equally on her shoulders.

There would be no need for my last resort line. Rosalie had won the argument for me. It was time for the next stage. It was me this time that broke the silence. "I would like us to relocate as soon as possible. I plan to leave on Friday evening, and I would like the rest of you to be gone before then. If you could take tonight to pack, and make the move tomorrow, that would be much appreciated."

There was another silence. I could hear in Carlisle's head the despair, the disbelief, the disappointment. He thought that he had failed, and I couldn't afford to deviate enough to say that no, he hadn't. It was me who had failed.

"But Edward…" Esme's mind was still a mess. It was easier to listen to her voice. "You love her, Edward."

And somehow, God knows how, I managed to smile. "Yes, Esme, I love her very much. And that is why I am going to do what is best for her. Please let me do that." Smile. Just keep smiling. "It means so much to me."

Was it all a lie? It shouldn't have been. The words sounded right. They made sense. That none of it felt true, that none of it felt like anything but a pathetic mask covering the fact that I was falling to pieces was really not something I could explain. Either way, I had won. Esme couldn't refuse me when I pleaded. Emmett couldn't argue any more with Rosalie. And Carlisle met my eyes looking older and more tired than I'd ever seen him look, even in our worst hours.

"Are you sure this is the right thing to do, Edward?"

I knew he could see it. He could read my mind through my eyes almost as clearly as I could read his, and I knew he could see how terrified I was that he would read everything in there, the pain and the panic and the God, God, I didn't want to do this and refuse me. But I _was _sure. I was completely sure. I had to have faith that he could see that, after all these years. So I didn't look away, just nodded, slightly enough to keep his eyes, and hoped he saw that for once I _knew_. "Yes. I am sure."

No one spoke for what felt like minutes, but I knew was only seconds, while every particle of my body burned and every shard of my spirit, whatever it was, turned to ash. I heard the decision in his mind before he spoke it, and it didn't make me smile. It didn't make me feel anything but the smallest, most worthless flicker of relief. Even that was beyond minimal. It wasn't really until that moment that I fully grasped, I think, that nothing would ever make me smile again.

"Then it is your decision, my son. We will leave tomorrow."

ooo

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A/N: Nooooo!

Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! This week is the start of my prac for this semester (ie. Where we trainee teachers go sit in a classroom all day and try to pick up something useful :P), and also my main assessment block, so unless inspiration strikes and makes me write at superhuman speeds, there will be no writing going on :( (I hate this time of year :S). That means next three weeks there will be no chapter. Really sorry about this, but at least then term will be mostly over for me so I should have lots more time :D So I hope you enjoy this chapter, sorry it's a week late, and thank you so much for your patience :) I'll see you again at the start of November! Reviews are, as always, much appreciated in the meantime :)

Oh, and this chapter's title comes from a fabulous song of the same name by Japanese band The Brilliant Green. Why is it called that? Parts of the song feel a lot like Edward's head space in this chapter for me, and I hear those parts when I read it. Plus the title idea I had was to do with ashes, so it was a natural evolution to end up with the song title :) So yes, chapter title belongs to The Brilliant Green, who I stole it from 'cause it's awesome :P


	16. Chapter 15: One Hundred and Four Years

A/N: *sheepish grin* So, uh, here's the next chapter? ;D Sorry it's so late – really. To summarise very briefly; I got sick (as in, hospital sick) with very bad food poisoning when I was supposed to have teaching prac, and so had to do my teaching prac around the time I was planning to post this chapter. That then ran into the release of the Twilight movie, and as I was almost singlehandedly (not for lack of offers, my Twilighters are awesome, but my deal with the distributor was complicated :P) organizing the first screening in our delayed country of Aus, I didn't have time to eat or sleep, let alone write :-( So I'm really sorry this is so late, and I shall endeavour to be more timely in future. Please forgive me? :D

Massive thanks to those who've reviewed, all those who've PMed, and everyone who's sent their support in other ways :-) A special thanks to the people who reviewed anonymously; I reply to all my reviews, and I feel bad not being able to thank you personally! :-)

Really hope you like the chapter, anyhow :-) And thanks for reading :D

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Chapter 15: One-Hundred-and-Four Years

The rest of that night was…surreal. Rosalie was tugging Emmett up the stairs—"we've got to _pack_, Emmett"—almost before Carlisle had finished speaking. Esme's hands were clasped too tightly in her lap, and the way she stared at her knees made it easy for me to look away. It felt wrong to be grateful, but I couldn't have met her eyes if she'd looked up. Esme looked…so young. Young like I'd met her eighty-four years ago, young and afraid and unsure. I knew she would tell me it was worth it, and I knew she was wrong. I didn't want to hear it. I didn't want reasons to stay.

She and I were the only ones sitting by the time Carlisle crossed the room. Ten seconds could be an eternity for a vampire. His hand on my shoulder was cautious, and I didn't like it.

_Edward_.

I took one more moment, felt his touch firm and reassuring and unchanging as it had always been, and raised my eyes. "I'm not leaving until Friday afternoon. You and Esme should pack. I'm fine."

Carlisle glanced sideways at Esme—incoherent thoughts of guilt, of wanting to be at my side and at hers and a conscious reaffirmation that he should speak to me before he looked after Esme—and back to me. I wished he'd change his mind on speaking to me first. I'd have to speak to him at some point, naturally, but right now I felt more ready to sit here for most of the rest of forever than to keep acting for Carlisle.

"Can we speak upstairs, Edward?"

I nodded, stood, and reminded myself that I _would_ keep acting for Carlisle because I had no other choice.

I tried to focus only on Carlisle's thoughts as we crossed the lounge, passed Esme without a word, and started up the stairs. Speaking in Carlisle's study was a formality, or perhaps a habit, a lingering human preconception. Carlisle would speak to me in thought to maximize privacy, and I would reply quietly, but everyone would hear what I said as clearly as they would were we downstairs. Walls and doors and distance made no difference to us. Esme's thoughts were still loud from the second floor, and Emmett was still screaming murder at me in his mind—the only place he could protest without suffering Rosalie's wrath.

I tried to delve deeper into Carlisle's head for focus. There was more than enough confusion there to occupy Carlisle, but I knew his mind too well for it to occupy me long. The guilt was peaked—Rosalie had been ruthless—but not unfamiliar. The uncertainty put me on edge, but wasn't new. Carlisle had felt uncertainty about Bella from the moment I'd driven double the speed limit into Forks Community Hospital nine months ago and told him I was fleeing to Alaska. Fear for me was something I had always monitored in Carlisle's thoughts, because it preoccupied him too much, frustratingly often. That could be ignored. Concern for Bella was something I had already processed from Alice, well before I'd broken the plan to the family tonight. It was the sadness that was hardest to deal with, and the sadness that seemed to dominate as he ushered me ahead of him into the dim light of his study—he wanted to argue with me, but he knew I was right. That was winning. I was winning.

I let that give me strength as I sat down in the chair on the close side of the desk, the chair that was more mine than anyone else's. He rounded to his side slowly, trying to give himself time to think, vaguely aware in the lower levels of consciousness that I would know he was giving himself time to think.

The silence stretched once he was seated, but I let it go—there was always the chance he might think something that would help me. We had been sitting on our respective sides of the heavy, wear-softened desk almost a minute before he finally looked up, knowing almost instinctively, with eighty-seven years of practice, that I'd catch the thought and meet his eye. I waited.

_You haven't spoken to me of this, Edward._

This I had prepared for. "It was a decision that I had to make alone."

_I am your family, Edward. We all are. You never have to be alone._

I nodded calmly, and was as glad as ever that my gift was mine and not Carlisle's. I didn't deserve him. "I know that. And I am confident that I will be able to return to normal life with my family once we have left Washington."

A moment's pause, and I caught the private thought, the concern, before Carlisle made it deliberate. An extra moment of preparation to respond.

_Surely you aren't worried about that, Edward? You can be with Bella and spend time with your family, my son. You've had a difficult nine months. I don't want—_

"It's not that." I knew I shouldn't cut him off, but I didn't want options, or compromises, or chances. I didn't want chances to change my mind. "I am leaving because it is best for Bella if I do so. It's the right thing to do. There's no other reason, Carlisle. I've thought this through."

_Without meaning to…Edward, I…I'm not sure how else to put this to you, but you should remember that…decisions you have made on your own, without speaking to me, or to anyone else…considerations that you have deliberately hidden from me…have not always been your best choices._

Anger, shame, the sharp sting of humiliation, a childishness that hated him being right…I shuffled them all carefully to the back of my mind. I was good at this. "I understand that, Carlisle. I made the decision to draw Bella into our world—to draw her into danger—without consulting properly with you, and this is my reversal of that mistake. I won't be so rash again."

He knew I was playing him—the thought was clear as everything else that passed through his mind—but that didn't entirely stop it from working.

Carlisle shifted uncomfortably—something no one else _ever_ saw him do. Maybe Jasper, once or twice. _Bella's situation is not the same as Rosalie's. She has tried to choose our life before it's been offered her, and she has stood by that for some months. You have every freedom to wait years and make sure she stands by it still before you do anything that contradicts your understanding of what is right, Edward._

"My understanding of what is right is that suspending Bella between two worlds, forcing her to lie to family and friends, putting her in constant mortal danger, and trapping her in a relationship with no future cannot be considered right, by any twist of conscience."

_Trapping her?_

A slip. A bad slip. He shouldn't have heard that. But…"Figuratively. As long as I allow her to choose me, she can choose no one else. If she is closed to all human relationships, then she is closed to all reasonable possibilities for her future."

He only half bought it, but it was enough. _You want her to choose someone else?_

No. "It's what is right."

_Can you live with that choice?_

It was extraordinarily difficult to hold his gaze, but he wouldn't speak thoughts to me if I looked away, and I didn't want the rest of the house hearing more sides of this discussion than they had to. "I don't plan on being present to live with it or not. I will leave here for good, I will return to my normal life with you and Esme, and with the rest of our family, and I will not contact Bella again."

More thought, more fleeting threads of ifs and buts, but they were almost all considerations of practicality now, hows and whens of making this work. I had won. It felt like death, and I didn't let myself think on it too long.

_You'll have Jasper watch her?_

Again, I had predicted this. I measured my words with all my usual care. I really was a monster. "I was hoping that you might. Alice feels strongly about this, and I'm concerned that Jasper may be influenced. It would be…a very, very much appreciated favour to me…if you could simply monitor her status, keep note of her location, ensure that she doesn't—" I flashed a half smile that neither of us bought, but it made me sound more convincing—"move down the street from us, or some similar disaster. She has extraordinary bad luck."

_I know that, Edward._

I mentally slapped myself. I couldn't afford to mess this up by trying to be clever with Carlisle. He knew me too well. It was time to return to the script. "This is the right thing to do, Carlisle. We all know that. I haven't done a whole lot of right in the last eighty-seven years…" I held back a laugh, vaguely aware that it would probably sound cracked "…or the last hundred and four…but I'm going to this time. Please have faith in me?"

The last question—plea—was a lie, but it was a scripted lie, scripted when I was calm and immersed in preparation, and it was a lie that cut through all of Carlisle's intelligence to the foolish good that lived at the heart of him. He had unswerving faith in me. He had kept faith in me when I had given him all the cause in the world to do otherwise. He loved me like I didn't deserve, and believed in me as absolutely as I did in him, and he wasn't really concerned that I might screw this up, but I had shifted the game to that ground, and I had the advantage here.

_I do, Edward. I know you can do this._

I bowed my head at last, and hoped it wouldn't give me away, because I knew the empty triumph that I couldn't squash from my face would if I kept his gaze. "Thankyou, Car—"

_My concern is whether you _should_, not whether you_—

"There is an intrinsic value in doing what is right. No matter how that hurts us."

He knew they were his words before I'd spoken half a sentence, but that didn't make it to formulated expression. _Edward…_

"Be with me, Carlisle?" I was really doing this. I was really manipulating him to my plan.

_I am always with you, Edward._

I nodded, and that was scripted too. "Be with me on this? Help me?"

He didn't want to say yes. He desperately wanted to say no, almost as desperately as I did, and he was furious at me, in large part, and hurt, both because of what I was doing in leaving and because he _knew_, really, that I was using all I knew of him to manipulate him too coldly and callously for words. But I had won, I had won because he had changed me, changed me when he had no idea what it would do, and his first responsibility, his first care, his first duty in his rule-bound, guilt-ridden, impossibly selfless mind was to me. And if I had thought there was nothing in the world that would make me sink so low as to use that, it was before I'd fallen in love with Bella, and learned that there was something in the world that would make me do anything, and everything, for every day I had left to live.

He didn't look at me when he stood, and he still knew I was playing him. But he stepped around the desk, and walked toward the door. "I'll be looking after Esme for the rest of tonight, but if you need me…"

I stood slowly, unnaturally slowly for us. It felt too easy, and not as wrong as it should have, as I knew it was. "I know. Thank you, Carlisle. Thank you."

He opened the door. "You are my son."

And he didn't understand that this was best for Bella, not for me, but Bella was not his daughter, not like I had been his son for most of my life. I didn't need to convince him I was right. I only needed to know that I was in my heart. "I am."

His touch on my back caught me off guard this time—I was too distracted, stupidly so—and a corner of his mind smiled as he registered the moment of tension in my body. I didn't get caught off guard often. "You can always change your mind."

I stood still, and let him accept it. "But I won't."

He nodded, and the smile was gone. "Alright, then."

I nodded. "I'm going to call Alice."

We stood one more moment, his hand heavy below the base of my neck in ways it couldn't be physically, our eyes still down. We understood each other completely—we had for a long time. And we cared about each other enough to pretend that we didn't, and to pretend that we didn't see how much we were both pretending, and to do this even though we both hated it, because he would do it for me, and I would do it because he had taught me that no amount of pain cannot be overcome for what is right, and for humanity, and for love.

There was only the brush of thoughts before he stepped away and disappeared down the stairs. We had lived in eternities of contact for all the time I could remember. Words were only there to be scripted. All our truth we knew already.

I only made it half way up the second flight of stairs alone. Emmett did an abrupt, silent about turn as he passed me going down—_don't say anything!_—and grabbed my wrist. I briefly considered telling him loudly that I had nothing to discuss with him, and letting Rosalie handle the rest, but I didn't want him running back to Forks in a moment of misplaced conscience and telling Bella everything.

He didn't say a thing until we were inside my room, door closed, and I didn't understand why until a belated sweep for Rosalie found her in the garage, on the far opposite side of the house. I almost smiled; any day but today, Emmett was ten times more cunning than me—he had to be to live with Rosalie.

When he did open his mouth, Emmet was whispering. "Edward." Whispering was not usual for Emmett. Even without his thoughts—or how blatantly obvious it was what he was trying to do—the whisper was enough to give him away.

"Rosalie will be furious. Don't try."

Emmett responded by lowering his voice. There was very little point—if Rosalie was listening for him, she'd hear either way, and if she wasn't he'd already been quiet enough to go unnoticed. His face said he wasn't taking chances, and his thoughts agreed. He hated disagreeing with Rosalie, but since he knew he did on this, he was focusing on not getting caught. "Edward, I…if Rose really thought about it…if she knew how…how much you're going to regret this—"

I cut him off before he could remind me. "I'm not interested, Emmett."

"You love her!" His voice was still a whisper, but his face was screaming. "And she loves you! This will kill you both! Is that what you want?"

And for a moment Alice's vision of Bella, crying, curled up on her floor, made it hard to breathe, to see, to think. But that was the short term. I was one-hundred-and-four years old. Seeing the long term was my job, because she couldn't. Because there was no way that Bella could be expected to do so. She would cry because she could only see the now. But before long…

I blanked my face, found calm, and turned away from Emmett toward the wardrobe. "She'll be better off, Emmett. I haven't made this decision rashly. That's all that matters."

"You're wrong, Edward."

"So Alice tells me."

I had nothing to do when I reached the wardrobe, but I filed pointlessly through my shirts—because I couldn't afford the fear that I could be wrong, and if I couldn't get rid of it, I couldn't afford to let anyone see it. And one traitorous corner of my mind spoke up with a too-loud voice the wish that shouldn't be there, that I _was_ wrong. But I didn't wish that, not seriously. Not really. I couldn't. I wasn't that weak.

"You could _listen_ to us."

I took a deep breath and pushed the weakness away. I was better than this. "I'm never wrong, Emmett. I would have thought you'd have learned that by now."

He shook his head. "There are things you don't understand, Ed."

"I've read human thoughts for eighty-seven years. I understand enough."

"But you can't read hers."

And I never would. She had been born with that blessing, to be free of my intrusion. Surely that was a message, clear as day. Soon, she would be free of my intrusion altogether, and all would be as it should. I stepped out of the cupboard, raised my eyes, and faced Emmett. "This isn't open for discussion."

Emmett was deadly serious. "You've lost it."

"I don't think that's medically possible. The brain of a vampire doesn't undergo change."

"Don't be a prick."

"Rosalie's thinking about heading up."

"Bullshit."

"Your choice."

It was true, in fact, but I probably would still have said it if it wasn't. Emmett stared me down for another two and a half seconds before turning on the spot, silently opening the door, turning again and stepping out backward with a steely glare set deliberately in every inch of his body. I got the point. He didn't really expect me to care.

And so, at last, I was alone. With one task left before me.

The number of things I'd wanted to do less than I wanted to call Alice numbered on one hand, and most of them involved Bella, and all of them involved blood. I took the phone from my pocket anyway. Two floors down, Carlisle was speaking quietly to Esme—I didn't intrude any more than my hearing did instinctively. Rosalie had just re-entered the house, and Emmett was safely back in their room, folding shirts. I wasn't sure where Alice and Jasper would be, but I was almost certain they'd be together by now. Alice had the overwhelming advantage, and I doubted Jasper would seriously try to avoid her. They might not be in Denali tonight, but they would be together, somewhere in the north. Together. It was a cold thought, an achingly lonely one, and I reminded myself that I was calling Alice, not the two of them, because Jasper, while I had nothing to hold against him, had definitely lost his place in this discussion. It was easier when I thought about just calling Alice, not the pair, when I thought about her as my sister, and not Jasper's mate, as stupid as that was. It was inescapable that everyone in my family but me was mated, but I didn't have to talk to them in pairs. Of course, Alice on her own, unsubdued, was terrifying, especially armed against me as she was. At least by phone she couldn't invade my mind. At least by phone she could never force whatever more she had seen of Bella into my head to weaken me.

I pressed the speed dial without looking, before I could back out, because I knew she'd pick up before I could change my mind and end the call.

"If you hang up I'll kill you!"

There was no one here to see me, no one watching, for this moment, so I shut my eyes, and let my head hang just a moment, and clenched my fists, and let the break deep in the marble of my chest almost come. And then I pushed it away, and put the phone to my ear. "I wasn't really going to."

"You hadn't ruled it out."

"Maybe." There was no point arguing with Alice, especially when she was right.

She'd never bothered with niceties. "What is everyone doing in Alaska tomorrow afternoon?"

There was equally little point trying to put Alice off when she already knew what she was asking. So I told the truth. "Moving."

"Moving house?"

She already knew the answer to that too, I didn't need her thoughts for that much, but I replied anyway. "Yes, Alice. Though they will no doubt be moving in the more regular sense as well, given that none of us are particularly prone to sitting perfectly still for extended periods of time."

"Being snippy won't stop me beating the crap out of you."

"Your being in Alaska might." That was probably stupid.

"I'd agree, Edward, except that I seem to see you heading north Friday afternoon, which seems odd."

"Really?" So maybe that was a little weak.

"Yes."

And I wasn't this weak with anyone else. "Why?"

"Edward…"

Damn Alice. I restrained the urge to swallow, in case it sounded nervous, and tried to sound as sure as I had for Carlisle. "I already told you Alice, we're moving."

"And you don't see a problem with that."

"We have moved several times before."

It was only in the brief silence following that particularly stupid line that I realized how quickly my sometime sister was breathing. Then she started speaking, and the things I should have noticed thirty seconds back—the things that were very wrong with her voice, and her breath, and her tone, the things that were so unlike Alice—were suddenly very obvious.

"Why do I see Bella sobbing and screaming into her pillow? Why do I see her staring at her ceiling like a mad person? Why do I see crowds of worried people harassing Charlie in her living room?"

There was a moment when I almost kept up the smartness—it would have been really satisfying to say 'because you're psychic, Alice'—but her voice was low, and quiet, and furious, and now that I'd taken notice, the panic in her breathing was impossible to ignore. This was the hard part. This was the really, really damn hard part. But I'd known this was coming. And I wasn't this weak with anyone. Not even Alice. I loosened my grip on the phone before I could break it. "I imagine Bella will be very upset when I tell her that I'm leaving Forks."

"Because she's not coming with us."

I couldn't stop the sharpness of my breath in, and there was no point caring once Alice had heard it. "No. She's not."

"What is wrong with you?"

This was where Alice's thoughts would have been intensely useful. I hated phone calls.

"You are not leaving Bella, Edward. I won't allow it."

And that just pissed me off. "You don't get to disallow it, Alice. I conduct my relationship however I choose."

"And it won't be a relationship if you leave, so I get a say."

"That doesn't even make sense."

"Do I sound like I care?"

No. "Be reasonable, Alice."

"Be reasonable? I—"

"Bella needs her own life. I can't crush her beneath my feelings any longer. I'm never going to change her, we have no future, and she needs to move on and find somewhere she does."

"Someone, you mean."

That still hurt more than almost anything else, even the fourth time through this evening. "Yes Alice, someone else."

"And if she doesn't want to 'find a future' with someone else? If she only wants you?"

"I am eighty-six years older than she is. It's my responsibility to—"

"You're not seriously trying to pull rank."

Alice was making my head hurt, and that wasn't meant to be possible. "What?"

"You're trying to pull age. You get to choose what happens because you're older than her? Grow up, Edward!"

I compromised and let myself clench the fist that wasn't holding the phone. "I have been giving into my desires like a child for nine months, and today I am being an adult and fixing this. Do not try to get in the way, Alice."

"I'll get in the way of whatever I like, Edward!"

"Bella is not yours, Alice, she's mine, and I decide."

"Bella's not yours if you decide you don't want her."

"That doesn't mean she's yours either. My choice. You will not interfere."

I could _hear_ Alice's smug little grin. "If you don't want her, I get second dibs. And I can assure you I'm not as stupid as you are."

"You try to get in my way, Alice, and I swear I will make your life exceedingly difficult."

"Bella's my best friend."

Exactly. Exactly my problem. "And she'd be better off with human best friends, her own age, her own _species_."

Alice scoffed theatrically. "You're kidding me. Her own species? Why does that matter, Edward? You're _not_ a monster! We're as much human as we are immortal."

I was not having this argument for the four-thousandth time, not today. "She deserves friends who share her life experience and her future."

"I've _seen_ her, Edward!"

And she really expected that to make it better. "No."

"Yes."

I gritted my teeth, and ignored how childish we sounded. "No."

Alice laughed quietly. "Who'd believe we're a hundred and four years old?"

I breathed out. This, perhaps, I thought, might be what hurt so much, just this moment, almost as much as the dull throbbing that was the day after tomorrow, the dull throbbing that was no future that could possibly mean a thing. Alice and I generally shared most things. We thought in much the same way on a surprising number of topics. We'd never thought the same way on Bella really, of course, but I'd always tried to avoid the disagreement…because avoiding it meant that Alice wasn't thinking about it, and the less Alice thought about it, the less danger that it might somehow happen despite me. We did both love her, I honestly believed that. So it…annoyed me? that we couldn't agree on this. It shook my certainty in ways it shouldn't. It…it hurt. Which was stupid. But it did. I wanted Alice to agree with me. For once in her life, I wanted her to just be sensible and realistic and understand that things didn't always come together. That there wasn't always a light at the end of the tunnel. And it was particularly stupid because I knew she _couldn't_ see that. Because she saw the light in everything, the slim chance that could come about. Because the light had come for her, or she saw it that way. Because she'd been stuck in the dark, and then woken up and seen her solution and fallen in love and found us and lived happily ever after. And so she was quite happy to throw caution and reason to the wind and behave like a naïve little girl, and Bella's wellbeing be damned. But I wasn't. Because while she might act like a child, and Bella might just as well be one, I wasn't, and I hadn't been in a long time. Because I'd learned—I'd proven—long ago, I'd proven the day I walked out Carlisle's door that happy endings weren't that simple.

"Edward?"

I shut my eyes again, and pulled my thoughts back into my body, and was glad once more that no one could see through walls, even if they could all hear this conversation word for word. "I have made my decision, Alice. That is my right."

"It's the wrong decision."

I wasn't arguing.

There was another long pause, and I could almost see Alice reaching through the visions in her eyes, sifting through her unconscious thoughts, following tracks and trails of maybe futures. I was usually glad to share in Alice and Jasper's gifts; they could be useful, at times. It took a little effort to follow the thoughts around them, so I didn't have to suffer them constantly the way Jasper did with his, but it was convenient to be able to watch Alice watch the future rather than relying on her description, to feel through Jasper emotions more subtle than I could comprehend through their owners' thoughts. Today, though…today I was glad that Alice and Jasper were in Alaska. I could see enough of my family's emotions in their thoughts to know that I didn't want to feel with them. And Alice had made what she saw quite clear.

"You're going to come up and meet us, right?"

The straightforward answer was half-way out of my mouth before I stopped. The question was refreshingly simple, but there was something in her voice…and not having Alice's thoughts was infuriating. "That was the plan."

Pause. "Make sure you come, okay?"

I _hated_ phone calls. "Alice, I can't hear what you're not saying from here."

"I know that. I don't want to put ideas in your head."

What? I attempted to back-track. It still didn't make sense. "I thought you didn't want me to come."

Alice sighed loudly, deliberately. Probably trying to put me off—I couldn't hear her thoughts, but I'd been listening to them for a long time. "I'd prefer you didn't leave Bella, yes, Edward, since doing so is clearly idiotic and completely without cause."

Which didn't clear anything up at all. "But since I'm going to, you want me to make sure I get to Alaska?"

Another pause. "Yes."

Something was wrong. "Alice, if there's a reason I might not make it to Alaska, you need to tell me."

This pause was longer. I waited. Her voice was quiet, and I didn't buy the dismissiveness. "It's nothing like that."

I tried to sound stern. I mostly just sounded tired. "Alice…"

It was odd, knowing I'd lived with Alice long enough to hear her thoughts moving, even when I couldn't hear them in my mind. I heard the intake of breath before she said something she thought she shouldn't, and I could hear the mix of anger and fear that she'd only ever used on me in relation to Bella. "You're an idiot, Edward, but you're still my brother. I won't lose you."

Oh. That made me smile a little. I couldn't help but wonder whether she'd seen me doing something…rash…or just knew me too well. But it was this in which she didn't really understand me. She didn't understand why I was leaving Bella, and she didn't understand why I would protect Bella from changing with anything and everything I had, and she didn't understand that I would never leave this world as long as Bella might need my protection. Or perhaps she'd just seen the future farther off, in eighty years time or thereabouts, and mistaken the time frame. That was…a sobering thought. But again. Not a new one. I tried to be a little gentler anyway. It was sort of nice to know she still wanted me around. Even if being around wasn't something that interested me all that much. "I'm doing the right thing, Alice."

I could hear her glaring on the other end of the phone, but her voice was as tired as mine now; she wasn't going to start arguing again. "I know you are, in your own way, by your own ridiculous logic. Your logic's just stupid."

There wasn't much I could say to that.

I tried to be patient while she didn't say anything either. I wasn't sure what was more frustrating—being unable to hear Bella, who I could never hear, or being unable to hear Alice, whose thoughts I'd come to rely on far too heavily to understand her, to predict her.

Without her thoughts, I had only the rise and fall and change of breath to follow.

"I'll see you some time Saturday, then?"

Saturday? That would give me a whole day, enough time to run, but Saturday…Saturday was dangerous, in my mind. Saturday would be…hard. And I couldn't afford to have Alice convince me back the way I'd come. "I don't know if I'll go straight there."

There was a long, long pause, and it was completely infuriating.

"Stay safe, please Edward?"

I laughed.

"I mean it. I know everything about you, Edward. I know your strings of stupid plans. And I won't let you just off and die. Remember that."

And once again. What could I say? I had a feeling that telling her those were for another time, a set time in the not so distant future, wouldn't help.

"Yeah. Sure."

She didn't believe me. But there wasn't much she could say either. She sighed. "See you soon, Edward. I don't agree with this."

I nodded once. "I know. Goodnight, Alice."

And the phone was silent.

ooo

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A/N: So, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! It was originally going to skim for a bit and then just show the conversation with Alice, but so many people asked to hear Edward's talk with Carlisle that I figured I'd better write it as well (anyone who spoke to me about it knows I jumped at the chance :P I love Edward and Carlisle) ;D Please let me know what you thought…and that you're still reading! I hope I haven't lost everyone after so long :S

Now, updates are not going to be weekly anymore, though you probably all guessed that :P I'm going overseas very soon, and while I'll try my best to keep updating while in the US, I have a loooot to get done before I go. I'm also back writing properly for a couple of other fandoms now, and some new ones, so it's going to take me a little longer to get this out. But I will try to keep it roughly fortnightly :-) Feel free to harass me if I haven't updated in a while, 'cause I'm just as likely to have locked myself in sewing and forgotten about the fic or something :P

Looking forward to hearing from everyone, and thanks heaps for reading! :-)


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